Ray gave a semi-nod, not quite committing to agree or disagree with her. "That's a point, although that's assuming that we're in a wholly natural environment. We were all hand-picked by the gods, so it would stand to reason they'd choose their local flora and fauna as well, wouldn't it?"
If he was honest, he was a little uneasy about the ease with which the youth had already accepted and potentially begun the process of reproduction, which put them on at the very least a nine month time constraint to get this community up and running. "Yeah, that's a little troubling, but they're young. They can only learn from it," he sighed. "Anyway. I'm happy to show you how to make the cords. It's actually not that hard, so much as it is tedious and, for a beginner, time consuming. But not difficult to learn," he said cheerfully, bending to pick up one of the palm branches and holding it out to her. "Would you mind holding this for me? Just here," he said, indicating as he reached for more of his cord. "So I can tie it in place?"
He didn't really need knotting lessons, since he'd learned all of that when he'd been in boy scouts anyway, but Ray didn't mention that. It wouldn't hurt to see if she knew any that he hadn't learned back in the day, after all. Every knot had its use.