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Published: August 3rd 2010
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Walls Going UP
Here is my first house with the walls going up. The family's soon is in the right front. What a hard-working young guy! Monday, August 2nd:
After a good night's sleep, it was another excellent breakfast before heading back out to LA to finish up "my" house. After arriving at the camp and stowing my personal gear in the church, I was told they wanted me to work on a different house today, the one the leader was left out of after get rather sick yesterday (By the end of the day today he was back in good shape.. stress, the heat, or both). So, after a quick photo of the previous house, I went to work on one that had the walls more or less up. By lunch time, we had that one pretty much finished, with the walls up, the door and windows installed and the corrugated roof well under way. When I returned to help put the finishing touchs on it, the construction crew chief wanted me and the other two church helpers to start on a new home, so away we went. Today, besides the construction crew helpers and the local hires, we had a number of Salvdorian Army guys. There were both guards standing around with weapons and a number of assigned to help with each group. These
Almost Done
By lunch, the walls were up and the roof was almost done. guys were rea lly hard working. I may not have mentioned this, but so far at each house location, at least the husband if not a son also were working right along with us. In this last house we started, the guy was almost maniacal about helping as much as possible, even removing dirt from the holes by hand rather than waiting for a shovel or post-hole-digger! By the time the standard daily afternoon shower came, we weren't quite ready to put the floor down. All in all though, we are already at least a day ahead of schedule.
I forgot to mention that our lunhch was made and served by a local member of the church and was quite good, consisting of a chicken sandwich with all the trimmings, Salavadorian style. We knocked off around 4pm when the daily shower came and after waiting for everyone else to return, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before our night out. At 6pm we loaded up our two minibusses and went to visit a.... homeless shelter for older Salvadorians I guess is the best way to describe it. Anywhere from 10 to 14 older Salvadorians come to
Refugee Camp Church
This is the church at the site the Mr. Moody maintains, and where we stow our stuff and eat lunch. this shelter for a dinner and a safe place to sleep. They don't live there, so I guess its sort of like our Waterfront Rescue Mission in Pensacola, except, these guys were all old and you couldn't help but feel for them when they have nothing and nobody. They were all quite pleased that we brought them food, handed out hats and t-shirts, and even sang to them. The smiles we got for the little we did was more touching than you can imagine. After our visit, we all headed to the same restaurant as last night, but this time we had the construction crews (all volunteers sort of like Habitats for Humanity) with us as our guests. Tonight we had the famous Salvadorian dish pupusas, which are basically their corn tortillas, in a thick variety, with various things you either put on the tortilla or you takes bites of together. Our plate was a mixutre of refried beans and rice, a pico de gallo mix, thin beef filet, and fresh cheese (Queso Fresco). Very good and very filling, especially after a second helping! After dinner it was back to the hotel to rest up for another long day. I
Another Great Dinner
Here we are back at the same restaurant, this time with the volunteer construction crew as guests. hope I'm not boring folks too much yet.
Tomorrow I'll try to upload some of my wife's photos of the families here to give you a better idea of the conditions. Also I think she has a couple of the "old folks sancturary".
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Tom Wiley
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Weather
J.C., What is the weather like in El Salvador? How does it compare to Pensacola summertime? Tom