House Update

 Well, the gringos are excited. They're building their first house. Who cares if it's half the size of their former apartment and lacking running water and electricity... THEY'RE BUILDING A HOUSE! We'll work with the community to earn the water and electricity together. At least we'll be motivated. We're very excited to get to know everyone. Each morning, our 14 year old neighbor and I hear chachas (?) in the trees close by, which I'm promised are delicious if you're good with a slingshot. We're going to find out.

Before.

Later.

  We're getting back in shape now. We're 're about to finish the second week of construction, and things are starting to speed up. Last week, we worked with a couple of guys from the community to dig the foundation of the house (too deep) 2 feet deep by 1 foot wide for every wall. Needless to say, it was by hand (pickaxes and shovels) and wonderfully refreshing, but it was finished within four days. During that time, the community fed us really well. So well in fact, that Kaleb got to spend his first real quality time on the porcelain throne; we suspect fresh corn, but that's only one of many delicious opportunities that I used to effectively ruin a weekend. 

Anyways, we were back at full strength on Monday and with help from the guys here in the ministry. We made the rebar cages on the miserable, rainy Monday. The rest of this week, we've founded out with rocks and concrete, placed the columns, and layed a few lines of block up to a dead line. Tomorrow, we'll put in reinforced tie bar around the base of the whole house. Next week, we'll head up and start laying block in earnest. It will start to look like a house soon.

For those of you that are construction-oriented, I'm sure you're curious to know how you make concrete in a village with no water. As it turns out, there are multiple answers to that.

• Option 1. Forget about this problem and be rescued by your neighbor that collects rainwater. Be sure this doesn't happen again, you'll feel like a jerk because water is gold to these people.


• Option 2. Bring water in barrels from the office. But, don't do that again, transporting 1000 lbs of water and 5 full grown men in your 4 cylinder truck up the mountain road is hard on the suspension


• Option 3. Fetch water in barrels from the spring 10 minutes away. This idea's a winner. It's a little tiring to fill the barrels by hand, but easier on the truck and the neighbors. 

 

•  Other Honduran Suggestion: Everyone pees and spits on the mix. It started as a joke, but then I got a little worried...  However, I'm proud to report that our concrete is urine-free. 

We're getting used to running down to the hardware store now as well. So are our neighbors. As we suspected, everyone within a 100 mile radius knows that the there are gringos in the purple truck, and that they're going to Las Lomitas. The last two trips to Peña Blanca have seen us flagged down in the street by the good people of Las Lomitas for a ride back up the hill. We don't mind at all, it's actually fairly comical. They just pop out of the crowds into the street with their arms waving. Ah yes, just like Ohio.