Dia Siete: 6/16

June 16th

A Day of Foundation Building in Santa Clara –As told by Sam to Ardyn

“We left at 8:00 in our limousine for Santa Clara. As soon as we unpacked our stuff, the foreman of today’s job was ready to go. Now what does ready to go mean? It meant that we had to get with mixing concrete, hauling it down to the foundation of the building, where others were helping fill the trenches with rocks.

"Now what do we mean by ‘mixing concrete’?...Well...first you have a pile of sand, then a pile of very small rocks, then you mix, in a pile, 25 shovels full of rock with 28 shovels full of sand....then that is mixed together on the ground...then you get a 100 lb bag of cement mix, pour it over this mixture of sand and rock....and mix all of this together. Get the idea? Now.....you make a hole in the middle, and pour two 5 gallon buckets full of water into the hole. This looks like a small volcano. You start shoveling the cement, rock and sand over the edge and into the water, keeping the volcano intact as you go around the edge. The water mixes the sand, rock and cement together, and finally, you have the wet concrete that we use to pour over the rocks to make the foundation.

"Others faithfully carried large rocks (from 40 lb rocks to 1 lb rocks), for Otoniel (the boss) to place in the trench. (Which we had dug over the past few days–2' x 16")

"As it gets warm down here in the middle of the day, ( Apparently about as hot as in a South Carolina cotton field–use your imaginations, Canada) we took a long lunch break and ate our peanut butter sandwiches with water and gatorade. We are not complaining, because we had a great breakfast, consisting of sausage and eggs, beans, cheese, tortillas, and pico de gallo–(chopped up tomatoes, onions, peppers..etc)”

Just as we were finishing our lunch, El Abuelo came over carrying plates of chicken, rice, tortillas, beans, and salad, cooked home-style by the family whose house we are helping to build. El Abuelo was hosting a group of school children from San Pedro Sula, and had made arrangements for their lunch, which we profited from also.

We think that these pictures will allow ya’ll (lol) to bring all of this together and to see the foundation building and friendship making with the children.