Monday, February 18

First day of construction!

When we arrived, there were already 5 rows of blocks up on the house. We knew our goal for the week was 14 rows total, plus a great deal of work on the floor and yard of the house, so our work was cut out for us, and we got straight to it.

The primary work for the first part of the day was on the floor in the house. There were many trenches left from the digging of the foundation that had to be filled in, and then the entire floor of the house had to be raised by a foot or so. This meant bringing in lots and lots of dirt (in five gallon buckets) from piles outside the house, digging out the trash, and then pounding it down with things we called "tampers"--coffee cans filled with concrete with large wooden handles attached.

While these are fairly simple steps, they are very time consuming. In addition to the many shoes, odd toys, and random household items we discovered in the ground around the house, we had to pick out the organic matter (roots, plants, etc.) that was in the dirt going into the floor. While the floor will be tiled over, it was important that there not be anything in the dirt that might eventually rot and create a soft spot to weaken the floor.

Shortly before lunch we began laying our first round of bricks. Because of his previous experience, Don worked in tandem with our mason, Don Mario (the Don is an honorific for the master mason and our construction supervisor, Victor). Don Mario used the first day as a chance to work with Don and both show him Salvadorian construction techniques and to learn some of how similar work might be done in the U.S. Don apparently did a good job, because by the end of the day Tuesday, Don was working solo!

As we worked throughout the week, we stuck to several basic rules--hydrate (there was always plenty of bottled water on site), and wear a lot of sunscreen! We were pretty fortunate that our work site had shade available for much of the day, and we often had cloud cover in the middle of the afternoon. Still, we all decided it would be better to be safe than sorry!

Then, after work, we headed back to the hotel for some relaxation after our strenuous day. Some of us hit the pool, while others elected just to take a shower and sit for a while. Either way, it was a wonderful end to a first day of work.