Day 3

Hola! :)
Work on the church began today!

The trenches were dug around the perimeter and large rocks placed in them. Cement was made constantly and poured over the rocks. It is nice that we don’t have to mix the cement by hand, as we have a small mixer.
The children loved to help out and one little boy would carry the cement bags in a wheelbarrow and wanted to dump them out for us. It was cute to watch, as the cemento bags weigh about 100lbs and the little boy weighed only about 50 pounds, but he was determined to help out. The next step was setting up the wooden frame around the perimeter for the cement foundation.

Carolyn was chased by a gander on her way to the washroom and we found out from a little boy there that ganders do indeed bite because his ankle had been attacked earlier. The Yucra family, on whose land we are building the church, built us Canadians a washroom in their horse pen. It is a hole in the ground with some boards for privacy. We are sure you can imagine the fun we have with such a small hole… The fact that this family went out of their way to build us such a nice washroom though is very thoughtful and sweet! They would do anything for us to make us feel more at home and that speaks so much to us!

For dinner, some of the Bolivian woman cooked us a large meal. We sat in the hut which they had also built just for us to have shade, and the first thing brought to us was soup made of vegetables and meat. We were all getting full from the large bowl of soup, when out came the next part of the meal which was a large bowl of rice, meat, lentils, tomatoes, etc. We had to tell them little (pequeno/ poco) because we cannot eat that much! They gave us oranges for dessert. That is one thing that is so amazing; all the fresh fruit that is grown right here. We have lots of bananas and oranges fresh from the trees. We had time to have devotions which Irene led and talk before we got back to building. We got two of the main walls filled with cement in preparation for bricklaying tomorrow, but the process took a long time and we didn’t get finished until past sundown, but it was only nearing 7:00.

A few of the Bolivian women and Marg prepared a huge meal for us! They had three different salads and pork and hamburger with rice. Marg figured that there would be much left over but we ate close to everything! All the families that could make it from the community came for this meal and we set up tables outside under the stars. The gringos sat in the midst of the Bolivians and using Marg and Jake as our translators carried out short conversations with one another. After the meal each one of us from the team told the Bolivians a little bit about ourselves; our families, things we like, where we live and so forth. Marg translated for us. A few of us had pictures and they loved to see all the babies from our families. Children are very important to the people here. After everyone left it was time to unwind and get ready for bed and get some rest for a new day. :)