Max was at home in Belgium when his phone rang. A friend was wondering whether he wanted to join him and his girlfriend in buying a ramshackle house at the farthest tip of Europe and converting it into a backpacker’s hostel. At the end of the call, Max went out and ate a burger. By time he returned home, he had resolved to quit his job and move to Georgia.
It was some months later that Emanuela, Woody and Max finally had the keys to their house. The cloyey dust of abandonment weighed heavily on every surface and thickened the musty air so severely that they slept in the car the first night. It was almost month later that I joined this trio about a week before Christmas with the intention of helping for a couple of weeks with this Herculean DIY project.
None of the founding trio had ever so much as put up a shelf before moving in here. The neighbours offered what building knowledge they had, but the power of an internet education prevailed so much that the same neighbours were soon enough visiting for advice on their own building problems.
Volunteers came from all corners of the globe: young dance students and retired carpenters; web developers and professional decorators, boat-builders and electricians. I stayed intermittently until July, when the hostel was declared open and he first guests arrived on the very evening that we finished building the last room.