Crack On!

So the maestro is the expert, the craftsman. We have three on this job, paid by the local Habitat affiliate to complete the project. Paula, the local Habitat project manager and civil engineer, a cute young fashionable Chilean lady, is the one that comes around and tells the maestros what to do. They then build the wall templates, mark the concrete form lines, etc. and in turn instruct us. Us, the untrained and not always eager team of gringos who may not have ever seen a plumba or wincha so close. Omar, Gillermo and Hamilton are our maestros. Omar is a larger fellow, missing a front tooth and not missing a gold tooth, with a wide grin, especially when he uses his favorite english phrases: Excuse me, please, please, Relax, and My brother (my browder!!). When instructing, he likes to get your attention, point to his eye (watch me), mumble a few things in chilean construction worker spanish, perform some crazy craftsman like task with wood, nails, saws, etc., and then walk away. Eventually he returns to make sure you have not screwed the task up entirely. If you please him, you get: PERFESTO!CORRECTO!EXACTO! Like hamsters in a maze desperate for our next food pellet, we await these words with an eagerness children typically reserve for holiday presents (and he is about the same shape as Santa). We have also learned he is the easier one to please. Is that foundation smooth enough? ma o meyo (mas or menos). Truss shaped ok? Foundation ditch straight and deep enough? ma or meyo..We love omar. Guys would call him Amigo, NO he would say, not amigo, MY BROTHER!. Then there is Gillermo (gee-air-mo, or as Mikael, the little Canadian says, Gill-airmo). Gillermo is harder to understand and not quite so easy to please. He also has fewer front teeth...some connection maybe? He will not do the ´watch me´sign, instead he rattles off in Gillermoese..his own mumbled version of spanish, and expect that if he says the same 3 sentences that you did not understand the first time, over and over again, you will suddenly catch on. I still can´t figure out the difference between his 'alla´and áqa´(can´t spell it either) but it is like saying over there or over here, similary, when 6 guys are holding a 500 pound firewall in the air, and we are attempting to line it up so that the tiny rebaresque rods protruding from the foundation can be threaded through the holes in the base of the wall, trying to understand if my end needs to move this way or that way, up or down, is pretty damn important. What can't be explained in words or grunts is typically solved with a sledge hammer. It's all good.