Yes, it was decided that we would be having a work day on this day. And yes, that is a floppy old man hat I am wearing, as both Sam and mom liked picking on me about. I do remember that everyone was told that morning to get their work clothes on, and Scott Vinsant said "But I just put on my school clothes" which just sounded funny coming from an elder of the church. Both Eduardo and Maximo came to the day care on this morning, as they always work with our group on these tough workdays...and both of them can outwork any of us any day. I had some time to facetime with Magan and the girls on this morning, and they got to see Davis playing with the random day care cat below.
I did get some good spanish conversations in with both of these guys. Eduardo and I both laughing at our wives thinking we are crazy using the apps to learn different languages. We had both experienced funny looks when we are repeating things on the apps. Eduardo knows only a few words here and there in English but he has a good ear for music. I told him this as a literal translation (un bueno oreja por musica), which appeared to be correct, except they instead use the word for hearing (un bueno oida por musica). He can hear a tune from our English hymns, and immediately know not only the song in Spanish, but also the respective number in their 300 song songbook. I did get a picture of Eduardo and his son Eduardo that attends the Borro school.
My conversation with Maximo was interesting in that he shared that many Koreans and Japanese were currently in Honduras digging for gold in nearby rivers. It is apparently very dangerous in those areas, as finding the gold and not turning it in may result in deaths. The Honduran people, including Maximo, do not seem to have alot of faith in the government helping any of the people, as he claims the government is corrupt and keeps all the money at the high levels from these other countries. That was also repeated by the American that lives there, Donny, in his descriptions of the daily lives within Honduras.
I also met a new friend riding over to the workday, Carlos. Carlos loves America, and lived in Maryland for many years. Unfortunately, he did not show up for court when he was supposed to, and was deported back to Honduras. His wife and three children still live in Maryland, which is very tough for him, but he was supporting them as best as he could from there in Honduras. More on Carlos later.
We began our workday at around 9:30AM digging into a bank, then taking buckets of dirt over to one are of the school to level things before we starting pouring the cement. I am just surprised that no one was hurt with that many shovels and picks being swung. I say that, and Davis spun at one time not thinking about the back of his shovel extending behind him a good 4 feet, nailing me in the eye. It did not feel good, and left a bruise for the remainder of the trip. Then this massive group of Gringos hit the main water line going to the school and bathrooms...yep, the large trench should have been a good indicator, but we forgot to call 811 before this work began. No diggity, No doubt. Carlos came to the rescue with at least a temporary fix, he had some strap material that was used to wrap around the pipe and allow us to get moving.
After our digging was complete, the real work began, mixing "volcanos" of sand (22 buckets), cement (50 lbs), and water (4 buckets). We had sand lines formed, we had water lines formed, we had a tour of duty on the volcanos, and we had super heavy concrete lines formed at the completion of the concrete mix. And I think I heard later, we did this process 20 times for 20 bags of concrete. It was completely exhausting. I completed 2 volcanoes start to finish, and I think the boys did the same, but ones like Eduardo and Carlos never stopped. And the peanut butter and jelly was great, but rather I just enjoyed the period of sitting, and took my time with that sandwich.
While we worked, several of the ladies continued with the Pictures for the kids and their families, and provided them with the necklaces and some other coloring sheets. I took copies of the bilingual bible that has helped me alot in learning spanish for each of the schools, which also I used to get a chance to converse with the maestras and maestros (teachers) of the schools. At this school, was a really nice lady, Ana, that was the principal of this school and the nearby kindergarten. She had a sister that lived in Tennessee, and she had visited the US once before. She was so grateful for the help of CRF and the groups that come and spend time with the kids. She went and got some bananas to share with all of the workers. She also is pictured below...and in that nice white shirt and nice pants...she jumped right into the work lines with us. After complete, she told the whole group how much she appreciated the work done. Did I mention that at the point where the whole slab was complete, a random dog decided to run across the wet cement. hahaha...ugh, but they were able to patch it up quickly.
Our workday ended around 5PM that day, and I must say, that we were exhausted. I was happy to get to hang out with some of the kids at the school before we left. They like the magic tricks, and the little girl below liked the "bomba" (baloon) I was able to hand out to a few. Davis walked to the store next door and bought a 1.25 liter coke (his souvenir) and drank the whole thing that night. He and Sam also went out with a big group of guys to get some ice cream in town. On the walk back, they were all laughing, because this stranger starting yelling at them, "Hey guys, How are you doing"? They just kept walking as all was dark and they didn't even know this guy...then he said "It's me, Carlos!"
Our night ended with some goat lords where Andrew, Emmie, and Maddie joined us from the Texas group. I had won the previous two games, so I decided to let others win from then on. We had our debrief again, but it was pretty quiet on this night. Back to the schools tomorrow, and we would be going to main school in town.
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