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Published: August 2nd 2010
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My Work Buddy
Here is the young, hard-working son of the folks I am helping to build a house for. Sunday, 1 August:
We awaken at 6am or so, without an alarm clock, having slept quite well after our long day of travel. By 7am we were having a delicious breakfast at our hotel, including not only excellent local coffee, but scrambed eggs with salsa ranchero, pancakes, fresh fruit (Cantaloupe, Mango, and watermelon), and believe it or not refried black beans. Actually, the beans went quite well with the eggs. After breakfast, we loaded up our two regular minibuses and headed to Los Angeles, the refugee camp near Santa Ana. While wading thru the anxious attention-loving kids, we were divided up into 5 groups and put with five groups of locals (some were hired and some were volunteers), to each build a house... by the end of the day tomorrow! Keep in mind, these houses are very simple affairs to us spoiled americans, but to them, the four walls with roof and a floor raised above the frequently flooded ground is a big deal. These are all wood structures, preassembled, with instructions. I did however get a real eye-opener as to how difficult it is to put twelve 8"x8" supports in the ground... level and square! The hard, sticky clay
Lunch at the Camp's Church
We all got together at the nearby church for a quiet lunch. soil didn't help much either! By the end of the day, with a lunch break in the middle, our group had all twelve supports ready, so hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow, all will be complete. The young husband and the twelve-year-old son helped a lot all day long, without being asked to. I do believe I gave the young guy a piece of candy about every 10 minutes or so
. Seeing these poor folks, and especially the kids, really makes you want to do a lot more for them than built a small wood house. You can't just give them money and its hard to hand out anything but candy when you don't have enough to give to everyone.
After many hours of being soaked to the skin with sweat, and tired enough that you have to take a break often, we were done for the day and after a brief prayer/church service in the field, we headed back to our hotel to shower and change before going out to dinner. We were going to eat dinner in the local mall's food court (MetroCentro is the name of the mall about 1 mile away), but My Worksite
Mr. Moody with his truck pulled up so we can use his generator, while two of the assigned soldiers watch. ended up going a bit further to eat in a local place that Mr. Moody frequents often with mission groups. We all had a drink (soda, water, coffee, or one of two fruit juices), then lined up to get a buffet plate of chicken, veggies, and rice that was quite good. I got one of the juices since the coffee was instant. At the end of the meal, the restaurant surprised Mr. Moody and his wife with cake, ice cream and a balloon for their 12th anniversary. Afterwards, it was back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep before our 7am wake up call. As an afterthought, you may have noticed some "extra" people in some of the pictures. Everywhere we went, we had Security Guards, Tourist Police, Salvadorian Army, or a combination thereof! They were all quite friendly though.
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