Day 3: Building a House 101

Monday March 7, 2011 (Yesterday!)

We woke up bright and early (like that’s out of the ordinary), in time for breakfast at 6:30. Rice and beans, as we’re finding out, can be featured at any meal of the day in El Salvador including breakfast. Mr. Carpenter, Tory and I had several cups of deliciously high octane El Salvadoran coffee.

Ready to go at 7:30, we loaded the bus that would take us to our building site and drove the 20 minutes through Zacatecoluca. In the midst of what seemed like a pretty vast neighbourhood, was our plot of land. The family living next door was very kind to us and brought us food and fresh fruit throughout the day, they even sheltered us during the brief storm that rolled in late this afternoon.

Ronald, our translator, set us up with instructions and tools and we began to work along side the masons and other labourers, after putting on copious amounts of sunscreen. Within 5 minutes we were all filthy, within 7 we were drenched in sweat, and within 20 we were all exhausted. The reason? Groups arrive at projects at various stages of completion –we were the first to break ground on ours! The only thing that had been done was the marking of the foundation. All day we dug trenches with pick-axes and shovels, moved piles of dirt and rock around, bent metal and wire and set-up rebar, in preparation for the mixing and pouring of concrete for the house’s foundation.

Our daily work schedule is as follows:

6:30 Breakfast

7:30 Leave for build site

8-10:15 Work, sweat, drink agua, apply sunscreen

10:15-10:45 Break (fresh pineapple + more agua)

10:45-12 Toil under the increasingly hot sun, apply sunscreen

12-1 Lunch (rice, cheese, noodles and veggies)

1-2:30 More work, sweat, agua, sunscreen

2:30-3 Break (mango and mystery fruit sorbet!)

3-4 Final push of the day, don’t forget the sunscreen!

4-4:20 Drive back to hostel

6:30 Dinner

Out in the sun, heat stroke and dehydration are a serious concern. We were lucky to have plenty of shade and enough helping hands to rest when we needed to. There were a few head and stomach aches but with some more water and Jean’s fully stocked first aid kit, everyone rallied to finish off a solid first day. We made incredible progress, finishing the outer trenches and all but one portion of the centre wall trenches.

At first we interacted very little with the Spanish speaking masons, kids and families milling around. By the end of the day everyone had learned to say new things in Spanish and had made friends with curious by-standers. Tory, Theresa, Loren and Taylor spent some quality time with Eduardo and his sister while Emma and I traded language lessons with Oscar and Juan over rebar. We also received a translated introduction to the education system in El Salvador by Diana, the 16-year-old girl who will be living in the house, and her two friends Fatima and Janiera.

The highlight of the day was definitely the fruit sorbet we had during our afternoon break and was a welcome escape from the heat. We were also fortunate enough benefit from a cool breeze that came up sometime after lunch. With the rare and little rain we had, the dust disappeared temporarily and work was much less dirty for a while.

By time we got back on the bus, blistered and sore, we were filled with an awesome sense of accomplishment. Will and I talked about how rewarding it is already to know that no matter who finishes the house, we’ve planted it’s roots and we’ll see them take hold as we sacrifice sweat and sunscreen for the sake of our work.

We were in such a rush to hit the showers and the internet café that we forgot to take our “after” shot of the group. You’ve all seen the “before” picture, but words cannot describe the amount of dirt caked onto our bodies once we finished for the day. We’ll do our best to capture it tomorrow. Until then…Adiós amigos!