Construction – Day One

Our first full day was a very busy one. Up by 6am, to breakfast by 8am and on our way to Hilltop Academy by 9:30am. We had been to the school the night before and saw the start of the water tower. Only the cement base was in place.

By the time we got there Wednesday, they had almost 1/3 of the next layer “planted”. It consists of putting rock down on the inside & outside of a circle and then putting cement “mud” in between. Then we stick smaller & medium-sized rocks in the middle for stability. We moved rocks and planted all of this level in 4 hours. Now we needed to wait until the next day as the cement needed to settle. And since tomorrow is New Year’s Day, we won’t be working again until Friday.

The work was hard, but surprisingly fun. The road after we get off the blacktop to the school is extremely rutted and takes a full 15 minutes to travel 2 or 3 miles. And from the hotel it is a total of 45 minutes each way.

After we left the school, we went to lunch. But first we had to get back to the hotel to change clothes (as it is considered extremely rude to go to lunch in dirty clothes).

Lunch was around 3pm and good. Same restaurant as last night. Then back to the hotel for a little rest. I slept about an hour, then showered and got ready for church. We met our chaperones about 7pm and went to an English-speaking church. I guess the country has just converted to English as the official language and all of the signage, schools, shops, etc. are learning English.

The first couple hours was a movie. Very interesting. Talked about how to get to heaven and had simply, graphic scenes of these guys traveling the path and all of the obstacles the devil puts in your path to prevent you from reaching God.

We left at 8:30pm for a quick dinner. Well, 2 hours later we were back at the church. This was an all-night party that lasted until 6am. Very unique. I took lots of pictures and some video. Hopefully we’ll get it all transferred before the end of this trip.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!