Things don't always run smoothly...

While we were away (Erica was visiting friends and family in the Netherlands, Saskia was tour leading a group in Mexico) we had a few unforeseen holdups, the aftermath of the collapse of a neighbour’s wall and the visit of a state archaeologist. But dear reader, do not despair, no people got hurt, and we do not seem to be building on Zapotec ruins.   

Our wall, your wall?

As we wrote earlier, while digging the trenches for the foundations, one of the walls delimiting our property from the neighbour partially came down. Since the most likely cause for that collapse was our digging, we immediately contacted the neighbour and agreed with him we would repair it at our cost.  However, during a building inspection – a matter of days before finishing the repairs – the municipality concluded that before we can move ahead with the construction we should officialise this verbal agreement by means of a notarial act. (Sigh! How they love official papers, signatures, stamps and what have you). And guess what… our neighbour is out of town for a couple of weeks. 

Oops... Big hole

And nice new wall

Archaeologist’s visit

We also got a standard visit from a state archaeologist checking the trenches we dug for traces of prehispanic value. Apart from the tiniest fragment of a painted pot from – probably –  the colonial era, he didn’t find much and said it was very unlikely that there was anything of value to be found on our terrain. Which is good, because that would seriously delay our project! But then… you never know. Unexpected things happen all the time over here. And the archaeologist did put some other stuff in a bag that he took with him. Mmmm. We better continue keeping our fingers crossed.