The Long Hard Day

The skin is wearing through on the tips of my fingers. They are rougher than they have ever been. Mixing and pouring concrete for a few days in 90-degree heat will do that I guess. We completed 6 floors today. We are over half way done.

 

When we go to the community center we were greeted by Paco and some of his students. Walter and I were greeted by Rambo the Boxer, during his morning petting session Rambo put a paw on my leg and another massive paw on my chest so I could better pet his chin and chest. Walter was drooled on as he pet the pups forehead. It’s kind of interesting that the dogs there seek us out for affection more so than the local folks.

 

Megan spoke about how she had the overwhelming desire to locate a team of vets and a set of clippers to fix up the pups. They are all so sickly looking and matted.

 

Then it was off to our first house. There was a steep hill and a sharp turn in the route to the site. For a little while we thought we may have to chain gang 5 gallon buckets of cement through the narrow opening and up the steep hill. But there was a back way around and we ended up being able to use the wheelbarrows. It helped to have a couple of guys with crowbars hooking the wheelbarrows and helping guide them up.

 

When that was completed, we had to move the mixer up hill to the next location. We gathered up the concrete bags and set to work. This one was done in pretty short order. Good teamwork and clear shot to the location helped out a lot.

 

I realized, after being lovingly mocked last night, I called out everyone by name except Megan and Nicole. Megan’s mom actually called her and asked if she was sick because she didn’t see her mentioned in the blog. No. Megan and Nicole were not sick. They busted they butts taking a hand at every type of job they could. They did the same thing today. Sorry Carol… your daughter ROCKS be proud. Same to Nicole’s momma.

 

Anyhow, the third house was a little different. Odd layout. Narrow path to the site. We set up and did the best we could. The guys helping us are amazing. Seriously amazing. I think their names are Jose and Lorecio. They don’t talk much but they are both wonderful men. Jose has a beautiful 2 year old daughter. He brought her to play with Pablo at lunch.

 

Lunch smelled good, I ate a little, chicken sopa with green sauce. My stomach has decided it has no idea where I am and it should shut down a little until it figures out my geographical location or I return home… whichever happens first. Everybody else ate up. I played with Pablo. Then there was a small rest and back to work.

 

The next house was more house-like. Neat, well kept. A high solid fence blocked it off from the surrounding homes. The floor we poured there was small and we finished it in pretty short order. My arms felt like jelly from running the mixer, “driving” as Gardencio calls it, I managed to dump a bunch of concrete the wrong direction and bang up my thigh on the machine. We were able to get a large amount of the spilled cement up, but I still felt like a putz from dumping it.

 

We moved the machine and started on the last floor of the day. It was in the home of a kindly older woman whose plot was well kept and had a decent view. The belt broke on the concrete mixer half way through. She was so greatful that we were there and even more grateful considering we did the last half of her house mixing concrete by hand. Sisco was a champ today. He organized the concrete mixing after the mixer went down.

 

It was back breaking and I felt pretty ill so I sat out the part of that. There was really only so much room and too many cooks really messed up the rhythm. We all cleaned up our tools and after some pictures, at the request of the kind woman, we headed back to the community center and then back to the hotel.

 

We have gone out to dinner the past few nights and it has been great. I really appreciate the fact that Rejuvenation is taking care of us… but tonight I just want to upload photos and eat my Odwalla bar that magically made it through Customs.

 

Photos soon.