June 26th-Day 18
Sunday we split the group up into 3 separate groups to go to different churches. One team went to Mateo church downtown, one to the Santa Ana church out where Marc Tindall is, and the team I was with went to Mololoa. Church went just as it usually does when I've been here and able to go. Afterwards each team went to separate places to eat. I got to hit up Pizza Hut with a few others and it was great. The pizza with the cheesy bites as the crust is pretty stinkin good. We then took the group to Mi Esperanza to buy some things and then went back to the mission for a bit before heading out for dinner. We went to the mall to eat and found the slowest restaurant in Teguc. We consisted of 70% of the people in TGIF and it still took an hour for some of the people to get their food. My table was done in an hour but the others had to wait forever for their food. After that we headed to the mission house for devo and then to bed. It was a pretty easy day which was great since I was sore from that house build on saturday.
June 27th-Day 19
Today was a ridiculously long day. I was again with the construction team who went out and split 30 people up to build 2 houses. The house sites were insane. We walked about 150 yards to the first site then STRAIGHT down about a quarter mile to our site. The lady that we built the house for was blind and literally lived in a shack made of sticks with mud to hold them together. She had one crippled son and another son who took care of them. So since we didn't have wood there when we got to the site, we went ahead and got it square. That's where the frustrating part started. I helped and watched and helped and watched for about 30 minutes as a few guys, who at the time thought I had no clue what I was doing but quickly had their minds changed, tried to square up the house. We didn't have wood so I gave them a good chance to get it right. When I finally told them to back up and let me do it, they were still about 30 inches out of square....YEA 30 INCHES, pretty terrible. Within 5 minutes I had it within a half-inch and they were like oh well that made sense doing it that way. So then we dug all the post and sat and waited on wood for a while. So at 12:30 we finally get wood and then have to carry it down this hill to the site. Since I was one of the team leaders I made other people carry the wood down after my first trip which was great. I put the post in and got the siding level so that when the others finished carrying the wood they could go straight to hammering. As I said in an earlier post, there are about 70 rookies on this trip. The people we built with today were pretty much the same people that built with us on Saturday. So we had a ton of people that had no clue to what they were doing but thought they did because they had helped Saturday. There were boards I had to knock off because they were wrong. Flooring that had to come back up. I told the guy on the roof to get down about half way through and I just finished it by myself. If there was a hard way and an easy way to do something, they always chose the hard way and you couldn't tell them any different. They tried to re-invent the wheel several times and I'd just have to let them try and then when they messed something up fix it. People were sitting around a lot, didn't want to listen to anything. This was the 27th house I've built down here and it was probably the house that I've put more effort into than all the others. Ok so I'm done complaining about that. The best part was that the lady had a house to go into tonight. When the rains came, she didn't have to dodge the leaks or have water run into her house through her walls. That's all that matters. So then we load the bus and head to the mission house. We were on the other side of the mountain from Villa Gracias, back on the back of the mountain in El Limon. We get about 5 minutes into the ride back and get stopped on a hill when a motorcycle pulls out in fron of us. When we start to go we just spin tires. After about 45 seconds we roll back, hear a loud noise like a tire going down, grinding like the transmission is exploding, see an orange glow out the window and then smoke/steam/something out from under the bus. Guillermo hit the air brakes and went to jump off the bus but we just rolled back. Thankfully he jumped right back on and hit the brakes but that's when the interns that were there quickly got everyone off the bus. The airbag system had gone out, botht right rear tires were flat, the air brake system went out and we think the rear end went out as well. So after an hour and a half wait with a bunch of irritated Hondurans who couldn't get home bc the bus was blocking the entire road, we made it back to the mission house.....around 8 or so. So it was an incredibly long day. I'm not sure that saying I'm wore out would come close expressing how tired I am. The frustration today and bus issues are all worth it knowing someone has a new house tonight. God is great. Tomorrow, I am going to pick the easiest thing on the schedule and go and do that, no matter what it is. But for now, just sleep. Oh great and glorious bed, here I come!
June 28th-Day 20
Today was a pretty good day. I was able to go to Mololoa to work with a team to move the mud from behind the church. I kept sneaking off as much as I could to go up to the daycare and see Bryan but we were still able to get 90% of the mud moved. We broke up the mudd, put it in a bucket, and tossed it over the edge of the hill. Very basic but evergy consuming task. There was also a team painting at the daycare and at the new bathrooms at the church. That was really all I did today. Hung out with Jenn some, played with kids. Oh, the new bathrooms need a sewage tank dug so we started that today too. A 5x5 hole 6 ft deep at the base of the hill in front of the church. That is not even close to being done but a good start was made. There are now plans that have materialized in the last day and a half to send a team to Choluteca to build houses for a few days. A lady that runs a farm there wants us to come build 25 to 30 houses for her this weekend to replace the terrible houseing she currently has for her workers.. She is going to pay transportation, hotels, food, and buy the wood for the houses so we won't have to pay for anything. We are sending 30 people down which is 3 crews with the hope of pumping out 2-3 houses per day per crew from Friday-Monday evening. Then we will come back Tuesday. As much as I like to build houses, I'm not so sure I want to do this yet. We will have to beast some houses like never before. A list of ppl interested is being put together and then 30 will be chosen to make the team. So this weekend might shape up to be an intense weekend. I'll be co-leading a house team tomorrow to sort of train some of the guys to work together and build a really good house fairly quickly as a sort of warm up for them for this weekend. I've got until tomorrow evening to decide if I want to go or not so we'll see what happens. So far it has rained everyday that this team has been here. The good thing is that it holds off until at least 3. Between 3 and 7 though, you can bet it'll start raining for a while. It has been fairly cool though, only in the mid 80's which has been nice. Hopefully this weather will last until the end of July. I hope everyone is doing great back home. Counting down the days until you guys will be down here.
No comments:
Post a Comment