Tuesday, October 21, 2014
“After breakfast, we get our
backpacks ready for the work day: hat, gloves, insect spray (I have
not seen a single mosquito yet anywhere in El Salvador), sun screen,
water bottle, electrolyte powder, naproxen tablets, a few snacks, a
book if it rains again like it did yesterday – and boots. You have
to wear boots and long pants at the work site, where we are
rebuilding the Christo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church. At
7:30 a.m., we get in our van which seats 14, including the driver and
our Habitat host, and make the 15-min trip to the Church via a busy
city choked with diesel exhaust and people everywhere getting ready
for their day. We arrive and the fence around the work site is
locked. Someone shows up and unlocks it, and once we are all
situated, the fence is locked again. Now, it's the 11 of us from
Good Shepherd, plus about 10 workers hired by Habitat. Some are
clearly masons who do a great job putting in place the decorative
cinder blocks which will be for the outside of the church. The
corner pillars are already in place and today, like yesterday, we are
digging out the foundation already within the church walls, and we
use the basics: pick axes, shovels, and wheel barrows. But today is
different; we can see that we made progress yesterday on the task.
Yes, things look better than they did when we arrived Monday at the
same time.
The work is hard, but we have good
tools, a good plan, and good teamwork, again much better than
yesterday. Instead of trying to figure out what to do all the time,
we now can see what should be done next. Occasionally, a crew leader
comes by and gives us some corrective instructions, like Roberto who
appears to be the site boss. The overall plan is always to start
work about 7:45 a.m., work till 10:15, take a 15-min break, work till
noon, take a 1-hour break, work, take a break, and stop at 4 p.m. We
do this but most of us are not wearing wrist watches, and we don't
watch the time very carefully. Except for lunch, it is hard to get
everyone to take a break at the same time. Breaks are simple with
bottled drinking water poured from a big jug, and today, bananas. A
hot lunch was served today consisting of cheese macaroni, green
beans, and a slice of beef inside a styrofoam containers with a
plastic fork and knife. Most of us also have snacks purchased at a
local grocery store within walking distance.
We stop early due to rain and put the
tools and wheelbarrows back in a storage shed. We sit in the current
church for a while and it never stops raining. It did this Monday
after lunch – for more than an hour. Earlier, a woman we met
yesterday named Miriam visited the site. She is about 50 years old,
stocky, short, and to put things simply and accurately, worked harder
than most of us. If she brings back her wheelbarrow from an emptying
trip and it is not refilled fast enough, she grabs a shovel, and
fills it herself. If you are standing idly in her way, she simply
goes around you. When she is not on the construction site, she is
sweeping the old, makeshift church nearby while singing hymns.
Later, she helped serve lunch in front of the church, then mopped the
church floor. Yesterday at the end of the work day, she said “Hasta
la vista, baby”. No one works harder than Miriam, and we think she
is a church member putting in some of the sweat equity required by
Habitat.
Dinner is always at 6:30, and tonight
we had chicken, french fries, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and a
dessert of two jelly-filled crepes and a light ice cream which seemed
light and partially whipped. After, Laurie and Sara had smoothies –
both served room temperature.
Post by Dean Olson
A gas power machine, you guys are luck!
ReplyDeletePeace,
Jon
Keep up the great work!
ReplyDelete