Friday, February 22

The final construction day arrived, and we were starting to run out of anything approaching clean clothes. The good news is that we were well on track to meet the goal of 14 total lines of blocks laid.

And we made it! By the time we knocked off work, we had all 14 rows up, a completely level and packed floor, and the sewage ditches were dug and laid with pipe!

The time had come for us to bid farewell to our construction site, the family, and the HES Sonsonate people. It had been a great week, but our job was done.

Before we left for good, however, Habitat had one more surprise for us--a farewell reception with cake and parting gifts! It was also a chance for final goodbye speeches by Cesar and Veronica, Don Mario, and us to our new friends. Then Patty Cordero (assisted by Cesar and Veronica) gave each of us a small bucket with the HES logo, a t-shirt, and a certificate with our group's picture on it. It was a wonderful way to end the work week and, for some of us, a guaranteed clean shirt for the flight home!

Habitat also had a cake for us. It was a large round cake, and I was asked to cut it. Normally with round cakes I cut it in wedge-shaped pieces, but this was much too large for that, so I started just cutting in a grid pattern. This made the Salvadorians laugh; normally with such a cake they cut a smaller round cake out of the middle and then cut semi-wedge pieces from the outer circle and work inward. Our cake, however, was cake cut gringo-style!