Today was the first work day for us. We started out with breakfast at the hotel on the veranda. Eggs, fruit and some wonton like treat. Really good with strawberry jam. Anyway, off to Conception school. We started out doing the welcome gaunlet with the kids coming into school with some belting out a "Good morning" and the other shy ones just smiling and walking by. The "Maestro" greeted us and took us around to some of the classes where all the kids gave us a hearty welcome. Next we joined the school assembly that was put on for us, where we saw lots of performances. There were all kinds of emotions runing through our hearts. We were all touched in different ways. To hear those kids sing, and not just sing, they were belting out those tunes. It brought some of us to tears, to hear the passion coming out of them.
One of the little girls took a real liking to Kate. The little girl was so excited about her she even wanted to buy her something with the few quarters that she had. Daymur and Nater, made an appearance and wanted to say hi to some people back home that met these little monkeys 3 years ago when they did an HANDS trip the very same school. After we wiped the smiles from our faces and the tears from our eyes, we headed to the construction workers who had already been working while we were getting the royal treatment. For some of us, this was the hotest weather that we've ever worked in. It must have been in the 90s and it is also quite humid. Thankfully it was a bit of a slow day, as were were doing some rather technical stuff, because working in that heat takes some getting used to. Some of us where even starting to feel a little sick, but that went did eventually go away.
After cleaning up a bunch of rubble left over from the roof tear down the week before, taking the forms off the concrete pour for the roof and brining a bunch of steel beams for the roof construction, we stopped for lunch. After lunch and a lot of fluids (yes moms back home, the kids are drinking lots of fluids, not to mention the sunblock getting pasted on us all) the boys and some older and hairyer boys, were asked to play soccer or "football" with the kids. They really like their football and some of us like to think we were able keep up with them.
The afternoon was a little lighter, thankfully, as the heat was getting to us. We started getting the steel beams in place for the roof. That was a slow and necessary process, but it started to look like we were actually doing some work. See the pics below.
We got back to the hotel around 5:30pm and had a quick swim in the amazinly warm ocean. The weather has been amazing. We got back to the hotel again and we were treated with a delicious dinner of rice, homemade corn chips and salsa, and chicken. After dinner Kent lead the team with devotions and we all had a memorable and thankful day. After that we took our, what is becoming a nightly, walk to the corner store for some Fantas.
Now its bed time.
Signing off till tomorrow.
Official team blogger.
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