I told him not to do it.  "Don't do."  (That's a direct quote.)  Said it in English.  No chance for confusion.  I went on to remind him that they would be coming here to Shiloh NOT to help us out with our projects, but to work on a helicopter.  And they would be BUSY, BUSY, BUSY.  It wouldn't be right for him to try to get them to work on a project for him while they were here.  And he agreed with me.  Or so I thought.  At least until they arrived.  Somehow or another, behind my back, he managed to talk to them about his broken generator.  And they were eager to help him work on it.  What do I know about anything???

So there they were, five technicians, (three helicopter mechanics, Papa Jim, and Joseph our night guard) all crowded around the generator.  Turns out they were sick to death of doing nothing and most eager to tackle a project.  Any project.  Bring it on!  They had flown on one plane and then another and another for two days.  Now they had been resting up, relaxing, getting acclimated to this time zone for two days.  And they were sick to death with doing nothing.  Taking a motor apart, looking at all those interesting screws and wires and what all else was just what they wanted to do.  They were excitedly all talking at once.  "Oh look at this!  Have you ever seen anything like this before?"  I slipped away to our room to read a book.   Left them to their fun.  

Several hours later they had officially diagnosed the problem, gone on line and found the replacement part, and collectively fainted on the floor!  Turns out it's not worth it.  You can buy a new generator for less than that.  But everybody had had fun, and that's what counts.