Our Final Day of the Build

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Today is the final day of our build. We get an early start, departing our hostel at 7:30 a.m., with the intent of getting most of the walls completed - completing final insulation, "foiling," installing drywall, taping and mudding. We now work with limited space with all three bedrooms off limits since the cement floors have been completed the previous evening - and they look great! While teams are doing interior wall work, others are working outside with the digger who has arrived to dig for the septic system. So much to be done and so little time!

The teams work nonstop, breaking only momentarily to grab a cup of soup for lunch since a celebratory dinner will take place in the afternoon. Our teams are working with an intensity as we feel that we are running out of time to accomplish all that we'd like to do before we depart Poland tomorrow.

Around 5:00 p.m., Magda insists that it is time to put down our tools and join a celebratory dinner that promises great food and a few surprises. We have wonderful grilled kielbasa, kebobs and some other Polish specialties. Everyone who has been instrumental in this building project over the past week is here - our team, Tomasz and his brothers, all of the Polish construction workers, the wonderful women of the Red Cross who have been so kind to us during the week, and local dignitaries - including the town mayor - who commends our work. There are speeches all around with Magda interpreting for us. It is a gratifying, rewarding and emotional time, culminating a week of hard work, laughter, tears and fulfillment. After the expressions of gratitude have been completed, much to Magda's amazement, we pick up our tools and return to work until there is no more daylight to work. (Magda said we were the only group to ever return to work after the celebration had concluded.) As we ready to depart the building site one final time, we take pictures with the three brothers, offering our fondest farewells and they wave until we are out of sight.

Back in Krakow around 8:30pm, we gather for our time for reflections before heading out to the city on our final evening. Most of us head to the Market Square one final time, and while we sit in the open air cafes and enjoy the light of the full moon above, we relish the friendships that we have created in this place far from our homeland.

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