Construction Day 4: We Have a House!

Well, the start of one, anyway. The morning started off making the mortar to lay the blocks! By the end of the day we had two full courses (rows) of block laid. So once we got started on the building, we move fast! Our mason, Dagoberto, and his two helpers, both Jose Antonio [photo], are extremely great and very patient with us. Through the week we've been able to draw them out to joke with us, too.

When building, the masons lay the blocks, and we come behind them and fill in between the blocks. There's also another type of mortar that goes inside the blocks, and we do that, too. We are a full-employment operation [photo].

The heartbreak of the day was when the folks digging the septic tank hole were told, just as they reached the bottom of the meter-deep hole, that they needed to dig a second hole bigger and twice as deep. After crying a bit, the crew took a deep breath and got going.

The family we are building with is a mother, Ingrid, her husband, Raimen, and their son (Estuardo, age 9) and daughter (Yesenia, age 4). They currently live with the father's mother, Isabel, and his sister and her family. Raimen works in a bakery during the day and so we only see him for a few minutes each afternoon, but everyone else (other than the little girl) works pretty much all day. Many of the days this week are school holidays, so Estuardo and his younger cousin, Victor, are amazing workhorses all day. Seriously, they frequently demand more sand to haul and yell at us when they think we're slacking.

The family lives adjacent to the building site, so even after the house is finished, they'll all basically still live together.