May 11th
We get up at 7am everyday and are out the door by 8am for our combie. In that hour, we get ready, have breakfast which is provided by the hostal and make lunch. Today, we went in the combie and saw that Dora had hired a translator! This was very exciting news because we had been struggling with Dora´s minimal English.
First we moved all the supplies from the school to the upper platform where we were going to start construction. It seems like an easy task but the stuff is heavy and it isn´t an easy route up.. no stairs or anything, just dirt. Leah had a small tumble on the way down but I definetly had the battle wound of the day; I fell down a hole while I was carrying a sheet of wood with Leah. My legs are nicely cut up now.
Milo, our translator, has worked in New York and has done construction before. He led the project for us at the beginning and it was very helpful. But after some time, there was some frustration among the girls because he favoured the boys for all the work, even work that we could have easily helped with. It was also just a different dynamic than we had been expecting, with him in charge. We tried to make ourselves useful when we could and played with the kids and the dogs (Steph wants to be a vet and is always petting and naming the dogs).
The girls worked on a project later on by salvaging some old wood to make a fence. We took it all apart, took out the nails and cut the pieces to size. It was pretty cool, most of us haven´t worked with a lot of these tools or labour work before.
Suud lightened the mood by making lots of nailing and screwing jokes.
The weather was nice today, pretty windy so most of us didn´t realize we were getting sunburnt. I got a lovely oval at the top of my shoulders because I had put sunscreen on but then rolled up my sleeves. No one was complaining too much though!
After we got home, I showered, people got groceries and we made a big pasta dinner. It´s definetly interesting cooking for 9 people in that tiny kitchen.
Most evenings are spent just hanging out, I´ve been reading a book called Little Princes, about a guy who volunteered at an orphanage in Nepal for trafficked kids and sets up an NGO to find their families. It´s really good, I recommend it!
May 12th
The weather was much cooler today. The mist was set over the valley we work in and we wore our windbreakers. Matt had wished for no sun to recover from his burn so we blamed him.
It was slow going in the morning, with the girls sitting around a lot again. We did help where we could in assembling the structure, we had 3 sides up by lunch.
After lunch, we were fed up of sitting around. Carley and I went down the hill to help with a job he had specifically asked for boys to do and made sure he understood that we were capable help too. After that it was a little better, with the girls helping to assemble the last walls. By Canadian standards, it´s a pretty shaky building but it is nice and made out of wood.
We played soccer with the kids at the end of the day. They just love soccer and playing with us.
On the way home, we had a bit of a scare when some creepy guy tried to open the window of our combie when we were driving home. We now keep our bags on the floor, like we should have been doing, to avoid that happening again.
We came home and Suud and I went to get groceries at the modern supermarket two blocks away. We made pasta again. We all ate together as a group and it was really nice, we all get along so well and we are like a little family now!
May 13th
Today was the coldest day so far. I even wore a long sleeved shirt under my usual Tshirt. When we got to Villa Maria, it was misting on us. We got to work today on stabilizing the roof and the walls. The girls also worked on the fence, which is ready to be installed now.
Things got a little crazy with Milo. There was definetly a lot of frustration throughout the week about his role in the project and the way he was handling everything. He also wasn´t acting very much as a translator. Leah had a talk with him and Dora at lunch because he didn´t think the amount he was offered to work was enough. He also made some comments about the kids and stuff.. we just didn´t feel like he really understood why we were there and what we came to do.
The sun started coming out around lunch which was a nice surprise. We finished up working and played soccer with the kids again. The ride home in the combie was a lot more entertaining today because it´s Friday!
I made my own dinner tonight and the others had pizza. We had to discuss the situation with Milo when we discovered we would have to be paying him from our own budget. We´ve paid enough to be here and he just didn´t seem to understand that we paid for the supplies and we are volunteering to construct it. He was also not really translating and was taking work away from us. So we´re probably back to the large language barrier at work but now we´ll be working a lot more on the project and I think it´ll be okay.
Tomorrow is Leah´s birthday so the plan is to head to the beach if the weather is nice and then to live it up on Saturday night. Then we will all enjoy a little sleep in on Sunday and relax.. then back to work on Monday!
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