Apology #2 is in order for being temporarily unaware that Monday followed Sunday in the American Gregorian calendar. The post previous to this one is about Monday and the one before that is about Sunday for those of you who hadn't figured that out yet. My sincerest apologies.
Today, Tuesday, has followed a similar schedule to Monday's with some minor tweaks. We returned to Pan de Vida to start our day, made sandwiches, and then quickly departed straight to our work site since our team-building exercises were now team-built. We also did not have our best English-speaking friend Sharon from Pan de Vida working with us. This made the work all the more difficult/entertaining to discern what we were doing. Dale was our best hope for picking up on Spanish clue words, if not entire sentences, which was a blessing towards our productivity. Today's main task involved moving and dumping 234,576,347,895,638,476 (OK, it was actually 50 or so, but it was brutal) 50 kg. (110 lbs.) bags of gravel, fine rock sand, and cement mix to a central location to be mixed into concrete and then wheelbarrowed throughout the substructure of rebar on the ground to build the foundation for the house. Henry Ford was probably the tango in his grave in rejoicing over our mastery of his assembly line manufacturing system to keep sufficient manpower shoveling & mixing while others were transporting and others were spreading and leveling. Even before that, we made all our firefighter friends proud by executing the most beautiful double Bucket Brigade lines the equator has ever seen.
Jose and Juan Daniel were great leaders amidst the Spanish-English mental wrestling that we all had to do to get each job done right. Both gave heartfelt goodbyes at the end of the day.
We also got to continue playing with the kids of the street, which brought them many giggles. "¡Marce me!" was a common shout as kids jumped all over to get a chance to sit on our shoulders. It was such a clear cultural difference for me to see mothers and children coming out of the woodwork and onto the street when they see or hear something fun going on. Mrs. Dreves was as important to communicating in this setting as Dale was in the construction group, though you really can get by with just "muy bien," "Si," and "No" when playing with the kids, which is awesome.
During our lunch break, we walked down the street (and I mean "down" the road is literally on a 45 degree angle) to a park and were pleasantly surprised to see a small pick-up game being played on a gravel court, and so we quickly devoured our lunches so as to play with them. We started, at their request, to play Ecuador vs. United States, but as we pulled ahead and started to substitute often , they agreed that we could mix the teams. It was a very fun experience, and the natives loved it.
After lunch we returned to the house (or lack there of) to try to complete the job. We got very close but ran out of time and concrete and after taking a few group pictures and praying, we split.
We had a pretty standard training session when we returned to Alliance, followed by a dinner of beef, rice, broccoli, and carrots. We took a dessert trip to the McDonald's that is a short walk from Alliance and then played some card games as a team. Half way through we were made aware that our beloved bus driver, Alberto, had been assigned elsewhere, and would not be able to finish the week with us. We payed tribute to him, finished our games, and then hit the hay. The days don't really slow down any time soon, so rest is very appreciated and well-received. As were Alberto's last words to us "Go with God."
Thankful for the way God works everyday,
GCC Men's Soccer
Looks like a blast! Been praying for all you guys.
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