More from July 13, 2011:
Once we all rotated through lunch breaks, we got things rolling again. We hauled a couple hundred blocks to the roof, filled yet another floor with cement and top coat and added powder color to two rooms. All of the class rooms on the second floor have real floors now! :) We also laid a few more layers of block along the roof up top for an area where they can hold a water purification system.
At one point today Rafael waved down Pastor Matt and myself. We followed him downstairs where he got Pedro (translator) to come too. We went in a classroom where he opened a bag of cement and dumped it on the floor. He then handed Matt another bag full of bright blue powder and a cut off coke bottle. He told Matt (via Pedro) to dump 15 full coke bottles of blue powder into the pile of cement powder. He then handed me a trowel and showed me how to mix it. So basically the bright blue and white powders had to be mixed evenly to make a lighter blue. But it had to be mixed really good. So I started mixing while Matt fought with his bag, within a bag, within a bag of blue powder (that's right - 3 bags). So his 15 bottle's full took a lot longer than expected. Anyway, he was getting this bright blue stuff all over his arms. I jokingly said "I hope that stuff washes off and it's not like food coloring."
We just kid of laughed about it. Once he finished his 15 bottles, he said "Well, I'm already blue." and just dug into the huge pile of powder and was stirring it with his hands. We got it all stirred very thoroughly, put it back into the empty cement bag and carried it upstairs to Rafael. Luckily this was the very end of our day so we just had to get on the bus and head back to camp. (By now the second bus was fixed).
Anyway, after scrubbing his arms in the shower and twice in the sink - something is definitely not coming off! haha Luckily - they are no longer bright blue, but they are all white where the powder was. [Maybe it is from the lime in the cement?]
Everyone showered and then we had dinner. Rice (white) beans on top of that and then beef on top of the beans. Then there were more avocados and some sort of potato and prune salad, and bread. The rice mixture was ok, but the salad and avocados didn't do much for me.
After dinner everyone circled up and the World Servants staff asked some questions about the day. How we were seeing God at work, etc. Once we were done with that 'circle time' we went and had our own FBC group time on the basketball court again. We talked and shared about how we saw people serving and taking care of others that day - power clap style. Then some people shared how God was working in them, etc. It was a pretty awesome conversation. We didn't sing any worship songs tonight, but everyone was tired enough - I don't think it mattered.
Oh! and one thing I forgot... Jeff (our construction 'foreman') gave an update after dinner. Even with the bus issues this morning we are still ahead of schedule as far as construction goes! He thinks we will finish everything and some extra projects by lunch on Friday! He is trying to convince DeLise to rent that vacation house again for us for Friday afternoon! I really hope we can do that. That pool definitely sounds good after construction days - and what better way to end our trip?!
But - we shall see I guess. Well the generator should be turned off any minute and I have another full day of construction in the morning, so I'm off to sleep.
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Last night after the generator went off I remembered something that happened yesterday. There was a crew of people working on the ground around the school building, cleaning up piles of unusable rock and dirt. There was also a crew of people laying block around the perimeter of the third floor. Steve, one of the Pastors from Tennessee, was working on the third floor. As he was putting mortar down to lay his next block, the trowel slipped out of his hand! It fell to the ground level and landed sideways on the top of Matt H's head! There was blood everywhere. But all three nurses looked at it and agreed that he would not need stitches. Head injuries just bleed a lot. Matt was definitely a trooper about the whole thing. He never complained. Steve felt terrible! I felt bad because everyone kept teasing him about it.
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