God answers prayers. The day started off with cloud cover and remained for most the day ( Thank you Lord! ) . Returning to the site, the trenches were completed and the rebar was in place. Today was to be concrete. There was some uncertainty on what was happening, waiting for things to be in place, so we had a bit of the morning to kill.
The team went to two different classrooms of kindergarden, 9, and 10 students. The team would introduce ourselves, where we are from and what we do. In return the students would say their name and what they wanted to be after completing school. The Dominican has some bright future professionals in their ranks.
After our introductions, work started. 2 men would load the cement mixer with sand, 2 with gravel. Abe kept a steady hand on the wheel and after water and the concrete mix, would turn it over and pour it out on the ground. A team of mixed Haitians and Canadians then scooped it up and loaded it into wheel barrows. It was amazing to watch the Haitian workers then continually carry load after load across thin planks to the rebar to dump.
All of the local construction workers we are working side by side with are from Haiti. They are refugees who find work in small menial tasks and are sometimes seen as 'second class' here in to Dominican. Adding to the mix, they speak creole, a language with roots in french. So it can be a challenge to talk to them, sign language is a must. Weird actions like doing the hokey pokey really translates to, "hey, can I use that shovel?". Even their oldest worker in rubber boots could out perform all of us, truly leaving us in awe.
The cement pour was relentless. Next to a loud diesel fume pouring mixer, the sun came out and was once again burned the white-white canuks. We were all praying for lunch and the Lord answered again... Lunch. No team member will admit to be excited to returning to work, but we returned after a bit. Shortly after though, the workers had lunch, another great break for the team. Back to work again, but soon after the power to the pump died so no water could be pumped and the belt came off and later broke, killing our mixer. Derrik assisted in fixing the electrical delivery problem. The white canuks took refuge under a tree, but the workers went another direction, making a massive pile of all the mix and hand making the concrete in a pile. Eventually the mixer was fixed, but the Team was already off for the day....how sad =)
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