Build Day 1

We were up bright and early today to begin our first day at the build site in the neighborhood of Sitio del Niño in San Juan Opico. We all ate breakfast and departed around 7:30am. The workday was from 8-4 with lunch provided. It was a sweltering 86 degrees today, and tomorrow is going to be even hotter so I'm looking forward to that. The family wasn't able to help out on the build site with us today because they were at work, but they said they would be there later on in the week. We did have Habitat constructors there to tell us what to do though. The day started off with a lot of shoveling. We had to shovel sand into wheelbarrows and move it to a pile near the house to make cement with. We dug out about three rounds of 15 piles each, so around 45 wheelbarrows full of sand. The land where the house was going to be built already had been dug out, so we just needed to add the sand so we could place the rebar. I worked on assembling the rebar to place into the trench holes. They were all constructed but needed to be tied together, so I had to manually tie each strip of metal to the rebar with a pliers to hold the pieces of rebar together. At the end of the day I finally finished with that and lowered the frames of rebar into the trenches. Throughout the day we also shoveled the huge piles of sand at the entrance of where the house was to be built and wheeled them towards the back of the lot so we could run water into the trenches we placed the sand in. We almost finished moving sand from one pile; we're about 60% of the way done. Tomorrow we'll have to finish up with that so we can add water and gravel to the holes for a cement mix on top of the rebar. This will serve as the foundation of the house for durable support against natural disasters here in El Salvador. 

During the day we were also able to visit with the family next door who is now living in a Habitat house. I spoke with the mother, her daughter, and two sons about their house. The son spent most of his day playing with their dogs. They have three of them and a few goats. I haven't noticed many cats in the area; people mostly just have dogs. At the end of the day when we were leaving the mother took her goats out for a walk. I'd never seen anything like that before; they were extremely domesticated, following her around like dogs. I'm hoping to interact more with her and her kids tomorrow to learn about their life story and find out their process of applying for a Habitat house. 

Tonight we have dinner provided by Habitat at our hotel and the rest of the night is for us to explore. I might find a group to walk around with since we have a lot of extra time. But first I think a shower is in order for us all after a long hard workday. If I can get it to work, that is. Last night I turned the knob to "H" which isn't hot, it's "hielo" which means ice. Thankfully I've learned that I need to turn it to "C" not for cold, but for "caliente." It's good to know these things so you aren't showering in ice.