Another interesting note about human nature. The first day I couldn't help but wonder what's going on at the other site. Was Anna laying brick with the speed of light like last year? Did she have another kid getting in the way of her highly efficient system? Who knows and at some point I just focused on what had to get done at our site.
We begin the day by loading into our respective pickup trucks and head off to our respective sites. In the picture to the right is the "sun house" group raring to go. When we arrive at the place where we park our pickup truck (because we can't get closer to our house) Carlos, one of head masons, asked for volunteers to move things. Fortunately two of our more burly men volunteered for the task. The rest of us head down the paths that will eventually get us to the site where we'll be building.
Our Bridges Trip Coordinator, Kayla, has hurt her knees and is 
in so much pain that has to go the hospital. So, Mark, the Ticuantepe Site Coordinator, steps in. Fortunately there are many trip veterans who know what we need to do because things are a bit chaotic today. To get to the site we walk down the road depicted in the picture to the left. Next we turn left where the laundry is hanging out to dry and then turn right to walk through the neighborhood. This path is depicted in the picture on the right. If you look off to the left or right walking down this second path you'll see people's houses. The picture below right is an example of one of these houses.
At first it's hard to look at the conditions in which many of these people live. At the same time, though, it provides motivation for the work to be done.
The picture to the left is how our site looked when we arrived. One of our first tasks was to level the dirt in the middle of the house so that we could move the cement block inside. Having the block inside makes building the walls so much easier. So, we formed a block line to move the block that already was at the site inside the house. To the right is a picture of that process. Note that momentum is key as it is so much easier when everyone ge
ts in the same rhythm as you leverage the person passing you the block's force. Sylvia (to the left) and Fatima (to the right) are doing some of the heavy lifting. I spoke with Sylvia later and found out that this is the 18th house in the Community that she has helped build. She's a strong woman and one of the people on the Committee in this community. (I'll explain the Committee in a later post)Next we began sifting dirt (I know that may sound odd, but there are a lot of rocks, leaves and other debris that wouldn't be well suited for mortar) and loading into wheel barrows so that we could make the first of many batches of mescula. (cement)
Seems like several hours go before the men who volunteered to move appear. From their faces we can tell they have been working really hard. Apparently they had to go pick up 3 or 4 pickup loads of cinder block
and cart it to the "Sun House" and then cart the rest of it to staging area 2 near, our house. Several of us went the husband of the house (Abuelo) to load the block into wheel barrows to move it to our site. It is arduous back breaking work but Abuelo, who looked to have 20 years on us, was working so hard that it was difficult to complain. To the left is a picture of him moving the block. (Note that he was loading 7 cinder blocks in each wheel barrow, I was only able to move 5...)Our group worked hard and everyone pitched in to do whatever was required. Despite all our efforts, all the moving of material put us a bit behind schedule. By lunch we had only finished a couple of rows of block.
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