Before going out this morning the team ate a breakfast of ham. eggs, bread, fruit and juice and sang together the song "We Receive Your Blessing."
When we arrived at the site today there was a time of transition as the Dominican carpenters were setting up forms for the pouring of horizontal beams to tie the building together. Harley, Derrick and Chris were removing forms from the completed columns as many others used hammers and crowbars to remove nails from well-used pieces of punky plywood and two-by-fours.
After lunch we began mixing concrete and running a bucket brigade at ground level so that our movements would not interfere with the carpenters who needed to continue preparing forms. Our rebar-hook continues to work well in hoisting the buckets of concrete to the second floor. Most of the afternoon it was Jose alone in the "pit" mixing concrete and filling buckets. At one point he even filled four buckets and carried two in each hand all the way to the hook, when we usually carried one pail at a time. Leah and I asked our translator to find out how much Jose's wages were. We told him that if we were his boss we would pay him more than 8 US dollars. He smiled and said, "That's life." We also learned that he works a second job as a night watchman where he can catch a little bit of sleep as he sits on a bench guarding a property.
The weather today was warm (over 30 degrees Celsius) and partly cloudy. During the afternoon we had a bit of rain, which we enjoyed as it cooled us down.
We worked beyond our normal quitting time of 4:00 because the concrete that had been mixed had to be poured first. After supper, Victor took us to a shopping mall "Carrefour" where we could exchange money for pesos and a member of our team purchased a basketball and a net for the school where we are working. We also had ice cream to the sound of a jackhammer doing renovations behind a blue tarp near the food court.
This blog was written (twice) by Harriette because the first time it was lost by an internet irregularity. It's too late to add pictures tonight, so stay tuned for that. Blessings from the healthy and happy team!
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