What do Jesus, Bob Vila and Peter Rice have in common?

We can all make you a table and chair set.

What am I doing here in rural Costa Rica? Spending time with Rural Costa Ricans, learning the ways of a new culture? Soaking up everything I can about this delightful land? Is my Spanish improving by leaps and bounds?

Well, no. I’m learning how to make chairs.

Let’s back up. I found this place through the WWOOF organization, a group dedicated to matching volunteers with organic farms on which to volunteer in exchange for food and shelter. But Eric and Ying, my hosts here in Providencia, have persuaded some friends to take care of their farm. Instead, they’re building a school to supplement the local public education system, which ends at 6th grade. And that school needs chairs. And tables.

The idea of carpentry has always been lodged in my brain’s attic, next to all kinds of other useless junk such as just about everything I learned in elementary school. It exists, and people do it, but not me.

This has changed in the last few weeks. Eric gives me a basic idea, and then I just plug away, wielding a tape measure, pencil, square, grinder, and skill saw like they were paint brushes and I was some, well, fairly mediocre artist. Sometimes the result is garbage. Sometimes it’s great. Usually, it’s just exactly what we’re looking for. After all, this is a school in rural Costa Rica, not a 5,000-square-foot mansion in Aspen. Nobody is going to care about an insey-weensy gap where the back brace meets the leg of the chair.

Working with wood turns out to be something of a spiritual experience. As you work, you can’t help but think about that silent army of introverted (mostly) guys who, over the centuries, have turned pieces of wood into all kinds of useful things. Their handiwork is everywhere, and usually taken completely for granted. I can think of only a few famous carpenters. Some were in a band, and another ended up starting a major religion (though Eric, who actually reads about these sorts of things, says the big J-Man was likely more of a stone mason, as that was the typical construction method of the time). But none of them was really famous for carpentry.

I wonder if Jesus would tolerate a small gap between the back brace and the leg of a chair?

And there’s no denying that carpentry is also cool in a caveman sort of way. Look! I make lot of noise and mess and this bench is result! Give me piece of antelope!

So the Spanish will have to take a back seat for a while. My horse has taken me somewhere else for a while. The important thing is that the learning continues, and the antelope tastes great.