Day 5

Thursday morning was by far the hardest day of the week to wake up. The pounding on the door did not make it any easier. As I lay in bed I began to think how much easier it would be to sleep in and say I missed the wake up knock. Besides I came down here to do an internship and take lots of pictures. I never signed up to be a missionary and I definitely never signed up to do construction. Then I started thinking about those kids in the village and how they would come running up to us with those big smiles each morning we arrived. I thought about their houses with literally nothing but a cooking pot, a plastic kitchen table, and a pile of blankets and pillows in a corner on the wooden floor. And my biggest problem right then was I had to rub the ‘sleepies’ out of my eyes. When I opened the door Myron was standing there with a goofy grin and that awesome hat he bought the night before. This helped me wake up.

(Me and Myron)

When we arrived to the village we were greeted by 3 other hombres from Sacua that were gonna be helping us out. Before today we had completed a total of 3 layers of bricks. By the end of the week we were expected to have 12 layers completed all the way around. With only 2 days left we knew this was nearly impossible. But by the end of the day it was nearly a miracle when we had 10 layers completed on the back side, 9 layers on the left side and 4 layers on the right side. To thank us for our work the chief took us into his house and had his wife cook us a meal. My sense of accomplishment soon became a sense of fear when a pile of these big white balls and yellow looking root things were placed in front of us. Myron trying to be funny asked if they had any hot sauce expecting to get a laugh from me. It was anything but a laugh when the chief brought us a chopped up green pepper. I reached for the yellow root first which is called Yuka, and dipped it in the pepper seeds. It was delicious! Now the big white balls were a different story. I still am not exactly sure what they were called but I don’t plan on eating them again while I’m down here. What a good day!