Ending the work phase

Yesterday, Thursday, was taken up with placing metal roofing and re-bar on top to hold the cement which would be added.
Here is the finished product at the end of a long day of cutting and welding.

Then began the long process of piecing together the old roofing materials and cutting the reinforcing bars, and wiring them together

Finally it was all ready for the cement: today's job.

Meanwhile, there were lots of children still around.  Alice was doing a heroic job of herding cats and teaching them English.

Of course, not all was work for the kids--especially since Michael brought jump ropes and balls and frisbees.  Here in the street, our friend Fredy, who also drives the van for us, has been teaching the children how he made money with a wooden top when he was a child--throwing it and picking it up spinning and tossing it against coins, to try to bump them out of a circle.

this picture is to prove that I, your photographer and blogger, am still actually here.  The little girl whom I asked if I could read to her, turns out to be 9 years old and reads an Amelia Bedelia book to me in Spanish.

So here is the deal about cement on the second floor.  First you haul it up in sufficient quantities, throw several bags of cement on top, and stones, and mix.

Then after it is mixed, you make a well in the middle to fill with several buckets of water

then you mix and mix and pour a little water on top until the consistency is approved by Armando.

Then it is loading it in buckets or wheelbarrow and tossing it on top of the metal deck.  Until it is complete:

We met an interesting man who lives in Goshen Indiana who is back for a couple of months to get his papers in order.  Here with Tim and Michael and me.

Things are winding down and it was time for a photo with Tim and Michael and Fredy and Gustavo, the senior warden at the church who was able to get a day off to come and work with us

Alice also was saying good-bye to her children friends

And finally Gustavo thanked us on behalf of the parish and introduced Ricardo whom, he said, had worked some magic which had taken him a whole year to realize, and we were presented with coffee cups whose writing with our names and pictures of the church only appeared when filled with something hot!

Wednesday at San José

All of the ceiling beams from the old kitchen were taken off yesterday and now a couple new beams have been set and others being prepared to support the new floor which extends from the floor on which we are all standing as we work and look on.  The first thing after Fredy welds two canaletas together is to hammer off the slag and paint the welding against rust.  Tim and Michael are in the process, making an awful racket as they do so.

Fredy is welding and then cutting the steel beams to length

Armando and his fellow workers are chiseling holes in the retaining wall behind the wall of the kitchen, so that the beams can rest on something solid before being cemented in.  It is tough work doing the hammer and chisel work while balancing on the old wall.  Of course, the lengths are odd, and so Fredy has to piece the smaller lengths together with welding so as not to waste any of the expensive material.

So how do you get the cement up to where it is needed?  Of course, the buckets of sand are carried up and the bag of cement and the bucket of water and mixed by hand on the floor.  

Then Armando tosses it into the holes chiseled out in the retaining wall.

It is starting to look very good.  All level and evenly spaced, in spite of the difficulties of the cement columns in the retaining wall.

Of course, another trip to the hardware store was required and while we were buying cutting blades and brushes, Michael remembered the women of the tortilleria who gave their tortilla makers a real workout every day.  So he purchased three new ones

While we were there, the water truck came by and the women signaled the truck and one of the young men carried up two five-gallon bottles, one on each shoulder.   Not a bad price: Lps 20 per bottle--that is about 80 cents in dollars.  

Speaking of necessary services like water, we noticed a lot of trash on the corner of the street when we came up:

It turns out that this is a collection point for the village.  Once a month the city sends a collection team, who made their appearance today.

Alice wasn't feeling at the top of her form today but still spent it with the children.  We picked up a few more from the neighborhood who seemed to love hanging out, eating lunch, and learning a little English

Here is Bob thanking the women of the parish for a wonderful lunch again: Fried chicken, platinos fritos (fried plaintains) beans and tortillas and watermelon for dessert.

Interlude in Delicias

On Saturday afternoon some of the group went up to the little village of Delicias del Norte where for several years a SAMS missionary, Barbara Boghetich, worked in the parish of San Lucas.  Her housekeeper for years, first in Siguatepeque and then in San Pedro, was Gloria, whose daughter, Erlis, now lives in Delicias with her husband Miguel, and their children.  She is through university and qualified as a pediatric dentist.  She has the needs of the village at heart and Alice often brings things for the folks in the village, as she did this time.  The first picture shows Erlis sorting clothes; the next shows them laid out for viewing, and the third shows shopping time in the village.  Thanks, Alice; thanks, Erlis.

Monday Afternoon

We officially began the construction project today.  When we arrived at San José de la Montaña, Gustavo Aguilar was waiting for us, along with Armando, the mason who would be directing the project and doing the hard work.

Armando is standing in front of the little roof over the kitchen which has to go.  Once it is gone, the floor will be extended to the wall behind and a new roof at the same level under which we are all standing will be built.

Problem: the drill (taladro) has a broken switch, so when Gustavo plugs it in, the drill works and has to be unplugged for every screw in the roof!  We decided to buy a new drill for later work.  But, of course, the drill was not all that needed to be bought.  We brought money from the Diocesan fund that furthers the Companion relationship with Honduras, and after all of the details were worked out, we went to the hardware store.

Meanwhile, Alice had found her group of children who gathered around her to have fun and also learn a little English.  They like to do it and she says they are all quite intelligent, even if slightly distracted after a few minutes!

We see here Tim and Bob standing in front of the Todo Fácil Ferreteria, that is, the "everything is easy hardware store".  We thought of it as a kind of ironic joke, since buying things at a hardware store is never easy in Honduras.

Bob and Gustavo are sitting with a man with a computer now actually buying the things for which Gustavo worked out the estimate.  It took a while for all of this to be written out and verified.  Then Bob had to go to the caja--the business office, to pay for it all--and then he was issued with a receipt that was good for the delivery.

Meanwhile Tim and Michael were trying to buy miscellaneous items, for which the process was nearly the same.  You find the item you want and take it to a clerk and she makes out a purchase order and you go to the business office to pay. 

As long as it took us, this was easier than the store at which we bought the drill--another step was included, so that after paying you had to go a place where the bill of sale was entered and then the item brought to the clerk.  At least they verified that the drill worked before we took it!

When we returned Armando had taken off the metal roof and knocked down the front part of the wall, leaving the metal studs with the reinforcing rods connecting them and the wires for the lighting snaking through the studs (canelitas).  

Fredy our driver pitched in and used a tool to cut the re-rods away.  

Down below on the next level, the women who run the tortilleria were hard at work.  You can see here the two relatively new stoves that were constructed several years ago. 

the tortillas are made by hand and sold two for 1 Lempira.  The women make something around 2000 per day.  That means they make about Lps 1000, which, in dollars, (at 24 to 1 exchange rate just now) is about $42 for three women.  Every week one day's earnings go to the parish, a

nd of course, the supplies have to be taken out.

Some of the women in the parish prepared a wonderful lunch for us: grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and rice with corn and cilantro (or perhaps culantro, similar, I am told). 

There was plenty for all of us and the children who had come and/or accompanied their parents.

Of course, all the rubble had to be carried down 32 steps to a place where fill was being supplied.  We were blessed that Aron and Daniel (and also Justin--not pictured) did some of the heavy work.  I (this is John writing) tried to make light buckets for them, but they added more if they were not heavy enough.  

Michael asked me to make sure we had a picture of him also carrying rubble, so that no one thought that he had avoided the labor part of the project.  

Bob Canter overseeing our work.  Without whom nothing would happen--he is the major domo of the project and of all the groups that come here, making headaches for him left and right.  THANKS, BOB!

Michael found some new friends and the work seems a little easier than hauling the rubble.  ¿Es verdad?

Handsome young man to say Adios for today