We followed a long tiring day with the long hike with concrete day, and since this was my 5th year, I knew that no matter when you schedule a concrete day, there will never ever been rain. The ancient leader of Honduras, Lempira, declared as an official rule of the country that never shall it rain on a day when they may get some work out of the Gringos. So while I heard others mention that it might happen, I sat back knowing that this day would not even have a rain cloud in it. At least until our job was done, then the Lempirian decree would allow rain at any moment. Belle was half awake that morning complaining about a rooster that cried out with crazy noises all night long. I am pretty sure I did not move much at all on that night.
We piled into 4 vehicles to get to this day of concrete, and I ended up in the back of a vehicle that contained Scott Vinsant and a couple of the new girls from Texas. One of them was studying to be a geriatric nurse, and cracked me up later when Scott was talking about back problems, and she told him, "Yeah, I will have your back". Which began the first of two major geriatric jokes aimed at Vinsant.
Concrete began as it always does with a sigh, and people picking up shovels and buckets. The Sand Buckets are heavy, then the concrete is heavy, then we marched around the volcano of sand, water and concrete shoveling it and getting it mixed together. After what seemed like a long long time, the concrete was ready and a bucket brigade would take the concrete into the home to pour the flooring. And that is for one bag of cement...that is when you look at the pile of cement bags and shed a few tears, then start the next volcano. Sam ended up completing 7 volcanos, which was alot and ended up giving him blisters on his hands even with the work gloves. I pushed myself to get 3 done. Davis stayed inside the home with the job of pouring and leveling alot of the cement. I think his stomach was hurting on this day, as he did not even break for lunch. Belle I think was on every cement or sand bucket brigade all day and worked great. She worked side by side with Maddyn, who had decided on this day that she would just be a part of the Junkin family for the remainder of this trip, and we were glad to have her. There was only one kid from Texas I wanted to strangle as he sat to the side and shared with us all the ways we could do the volcanos better while he held a shovel, but never really used that shovel.
During the breaks, I would go over and show some magic tricks to the kids in the neighborhood. And they enjoyed it so much, they came and found me during a break later in the day for more tricks and especially wanting to see the libreta (little book) of magic. I was having too much fun, and really almost got hit by two motorcycles riding past Donny's truck. Looking back, I really was dumb not even looking not once but twice. Donny even put his cigar aside to yell at me to look out when I go around his truck. Oh yeah, I think lunch was chinese on this day also, so we had chinese rice and noodles 5 days for lunch...ugh. I had fun with the tricks and noticed the one ring leader that could figure out my tricks and planned to share my secretos later. Then I did the monster in the bag trick, and while I did not get big laughs, I got a large delayed laugh from the ring leader, which I will call a win. He was trying to be cool and not laugh, but it got him. This ringleader also later showed up on a motorcycle for our team and his friends, but nearly wrecked it popping a wheelie actually running behind up up in the air. But he landed it every time.
On this day, the owner of the home passed us a couple of times with a wheelbarrow, and one of our group saw him just in tears of joy when the project was complete. We gathered our large group of 50 around this man and his wife to pray for their home and family. Then, with a whole other event planned for this evening at the church building (That meeting was supposed to start at 3PM, and it was around 4PM when we finished), we set off back to the day care. Me and Davis stood up at the front of Donny's truck getting a better ride than any at six flags. I tried to throw toys to all my little friends that we passed by, and threw a perfect shot to my new friend, the ringleader with the motorcycle, who caught one of my ninjas as we passed by.
This was our first Saturday we have ever been in country with our group, so we had planned an event at the church with the young people, and all of the youth. Eduardo had often talked about this event, and we just wanted to be a part since we would be there on Saturday. And even tho we were very late, most of us skipping a shower and running straight there, it was somewhat normal for Honduras time. We began with the church youth performing a couple of skits where the things of this world pulled them away, but we needed Jesus to rescue us. Maximo's son David played Jesus in the skit. Then the younger kids sang some songs for us. Next all of the kids shared a memorized verse that we videoed and shared with Dave Long...they quoted Philippians 2:14 to help encourage him. Maximo shared a wonderful message that Dave had sent him for the people of campamento. While Dave was not with us, we know he was smiling when he saw all these kids. Our group then performed the Good Samaritan skit for the church.
Next we began a series of games. I had brought a few, but looking at the time, and realizing that we had made some of those folks be there for a LONG time, I cut it to one, and we played a game where you have to turn a blanket completly over without any of the team members stepping off of the blanket. Eduardo took one team, while I took the other, and while my team lost the first match because I stepped off the blanket, we won the second. Then Eduardo started a game with a basketball where we had to roll it down all the way across everyones backs to the end of the line. I stepped out of line to take pictures, but it was very difficult and I did not think this game was ever going to end. It started as a competition, but I think quickly turned into ANYONE, PLEASE SOMEONE GET THAT BALL TO THE OTHER SIDE! Then the whole crowd erupted when finally the game was won.
After all the games, things slowed for a few pictures, and the group there stayed for Hot Dogs and French Fries. I passed out the Chelsea Heart t-shirts, and felt bad that I did not save all the right sizes for Maximo and Eduardo's family. Oh well, I will blame it on too much sun. Our group was about whooped, so we snuck out and back to the daycare, where we had some amazing pork chops for dinner...then got in line for our cold shower. Another day down, and again, I think it was fairly quiet as this was a very full day.
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