Lane's Adventures

The last day was certainly not the easiest. We arrived on the worksite around 9:00 and started our work pretty soon thereafter. Our task for the day was to pour the floor in the house that we had been working on. There was a little more terra blanca to place on the floor, level, and pack before it would be ready for pouring.

We were again very tired by what we thought was the hottest day of the week (it probably wasn’t, but we were progressively more crispy and exhausted); finally we started work on the pouring. It was necessary to fill all of the rooms with concrete that we had mixed and transferred to wheelbarrows. The process was a lot slower than pouring the walls because the concrete had to be leveled and troweled before we could proceed. Before lunch we finished the entire house besides the porch and largest room.

While we waited on lunch to arrive, several of the children who live in the houses came out to play with us. They were adorable and taught everyone a game based on rock-paper-scissors. One of the younger kids also had a slinky that we played with. We also ate some cookies and chatted briefly before our delicious lunch of chicken, rice, salad, tortillas, and juice arrived.

After lunch, it was back out in the hottest part of the day (12:00 – 2:00). We were able to finish the remaining rooms and ended up having to mix a small batch of concrete by hand. This made those of us involved incredibly thankful for the motorized mixer. I chatted with Lance this evening and he showed me a video of one time when he was here and they didn’t have the mixer and had to do it all by hand – definitely a slower process!

As the work day wrapped up and we washed our tools, we returned home to find that our electricity didn’t work. We still decided to jump in the ocean and pool, and in the meantime, the lights came back on, so we were able to shower before heading out for our final dinner together. Jonathan, our awesome driver, recommended a place called Azteca in San Salvador. Michael, Suzy, Micah, and Kara joined as well.  Dinner was a great time to reflect on some of our awesome memories and watch Andy perform Usher karaoke in front of the entire restaurant – he was amazing with both the song and dance.

Upon our return to the house, everyone was exhausted, so most people retired to bed, but a few of us stayed up and chatted. Lance shared with me some of the stories about Millard Fuller, the founder of the Fuller Center and Habitat for Humanity. I’ve got some more reading to do, but he was a really genuine person who dedicated his life to serving others and helping others help themselves. Caroline shot some more video interviews, which will hopefully be compiled into an awesome DVD when we’re back in Cincy.

Tomorrow morning we’ll head off for the airport – we’ll be there for a while, and I’ll be in Atlanta tomorrow night, so I’ll write more from the plane as a sort of wrap-up.

Last day with our group & workers on site

We were all dragging this morning when we got up. After breakfast, we headed back to the Fuller Center site where I started on the same work as Wednesday – tying rebar ties for the skeleton of a new house. I learned that the house that we’re working on is a prototype for a house that the Fuller Center may try to build in Haiti. It’s smaller than the other houses on the site – a duplex with only one room each.  Pedro (one of the local artisans), Austin, and I were the only ones doing this the whole day (Caroline helped before lunch). We accomplished quite a bit, although it’s kind of hard to tell. I got a picture of the structure so you can see what I’ve been writing about.

By the time noon rolled around, we were exhausted from the heat and work. Others had been hauling dirt known as terra blanca  (white earth) to the floor of the house for which we poured walls on Tuesday. After hauling it in, they tamped it in preparation for the concrete that we’ll pour on the floor tomorrow. There were yet a few others putting up deco-covering on the inside walls of the house (aesthetically pleasing and an insulator).

After lunch, Micah told us that we could take a “field trip” in the back of the truck. We were all pretty afraid that we were going to have to carry something heavy, but when we got to the truck he told us that we were going to check out the area. Our first stop was a school with grades 1-9. The students gave us those “gringo” looks that we sometimes get as the elephants in the room, but they were glad to see us, and we got several pictures with them. We tried to teach them our “Down the Drive” UC cheer, but they didn’t really catch on, so I think Caroline has a video of us performing at their school. By the way, Caroline is going to make a video from the clips that she’s been shooting, so hopefully we’ll have it online at some point.

Our next stop was another Fuller Center house that Lance had worked on while he was here a couple years ago. This was a cinder block house back a pretty long lane. He shared the story of the people who were living there, and it was good to see that they are doing well.

When we made it back to the worksite, it was back to the grind, although we felt like it was time to go home. Our work stretched through the hotter part of the day, but we found reprieve with a few clouds that lingered briefly. I had a chance to chat with Pedro while we were working, and he has a pretty amazing story; some children living in the houses also came out and interacted with us while we were working.

As we wrapped up the work day and jumped in the van back to the house, we were pretty exhausted, but we rocked out with Jonathan in the van as usual. Our ocean and pool plunge ensued as we refreshed ourselves  — dinner of spaghetti (with beans, inside joke) definitely hit the spot for most. After dinner we played a game called “Psychiatrist” that Micah knew – it was a blast and we had a couple good hours of laughs together.

Melissa and I talked on the way back this afternoon about how we can’t believe that our week here is almost up – tomorrow will be a busy day and we’ll head out to dinner in the evening. It will definitely be hard to leave this beautiful spot, but I’ll do so knowing that we’ve accomplished quite a bit in a short amount of time and made some great friends in the process.

Hot. Of course we expected it to be very hot because of our proximity to the equator, but today was especially hot. Perhaps it was the same temperature as the previous two days, but since there was no hiding from the direct sun, it seemed worse today.

Once again, we trekked to the Fuller Center worksite after breakfast. By the time we were on site just before 9:00, the sun was heating up. My first job was to move, cut, bend, and tie rebar and wire mesh for a new house. Rebar jutted from the footers that had already been poured, and we needed to attach wire mesh that will reinforce the walls. It is because of these fortifications that the houses are especially seismically resistant.

Austin, Nikki, Sarah and I worked with Pedro, a local artisan, to set up the house in preparation for concrete forms. We carried large pieces of mesh and bent them for the corners, cutting others to fit the walls. The most arduous task that Austin and I were assigned was to twist small pieces of wire around the rebar and mesh to connect them. Wrangling wire is pretty tough, especially because it’s sharp and bouncy, and trying to tie wire around rebar is made extra-difficult in the direct heat.

Right after lunch (which we couldn’t have enjoyed more after hard work), Nikki, Sarah, and I moved to a new job. While the four of us had been working with wire, two other tasks were being completed simultaneously: removal of the forms from the house that we poured Tuesday, and coating of interior walls with deco-coating (it looks like plaster). The three of us started moving the concrete forms to the back of the pickup truck, and then I jumped on and unloaded them in the secure storage area. Micah told us that the forms are quite a commodity and had been donated to the project; they have even had offers from local construction companies to buy them because they are so hard to get into the country.

The forms are metal and are also quite heavy to move, so this required some teamwork and plenty of sweat. The day didn’t wrap up until around 3:30 or 4:00; by the time we got in the van, we were all pretty tired. Again, we were refreshed by a plunge in the Pacific. Jonathan, our driver, even made the plunge with us! Throughout the evening, we just relaxed and chatted, because we were all exhausted. Bedtime tonight is even earlier! Tomorrow we’ll be back at the site, probably pouring the floor in the house on which we have been working.

Everything here is amazing; it’s still awesome to get to know these amazing people. I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to come on the trip, as I had never been on a service trip of this caliber – what I’ve been able to give and have gained thus far have certainly exceeded my expectations.

Our DSL is still down, so only one picture. Unfortunately I forgot to get a photo of the house that we worked on today — tomorrow I’ll try and remember to get one.

Day 3 work

Exhaustion. I haven’t been so exhausted for quite a while, but it has never felt so good! Today we headed to the worksite where the Fuller Center is building over 60 houses in San Luis Talpa. There are already quite a few houses completed; sixteen of them were built back in 2008 with a blitz build and the rest are slowly being built. If one were to look at the houses without knowing the situation, s/he might think that they look like cement bunkers. Most of the houses that we have seen in the country (and even some that I saw in the large city) are basically made of dirt floors, corrugated sheet metal, sticks/rough wood, and sometimes palm hatched together. Needless to say, the living conditions inside these houses are not good, especially when it’s raining or if there’s an earthquake, which happens about every 30 years.

The houses here at the Fuller Center project are excellent; they are made of concrete or cinder block, have electricity, water, concrete floors, patios, and multiple rooms – they are secure, seismically resistant, and highly efficient. Micah told us today that they switched from using a cinder block format to poured concrete walls because they can control the quality of each build better and because they are more efficient – the outsides are plastered with a material that gives them a nice white finish, but also reflects the sun to keep them cool. Believe me, the rays are intense down here by the equator!

Now that the houses are being built of the poured concrete walls, I’ll get to my story about today’s work. As yesterday, we mixed concrete in the mechanical mixer – for your information, our concrete mix is made of three 5-gallon buckets of crushed limestone, four buckets of sand and half a bag of cement (add water to taste). After it’s adequately mixed, concrete is poured into a wooden box where we shovel it into smaller metal pails (they look like the pails that one might use to take ashes from a fireplace – probably about 3 gallons). Other workers sit on top of the forms and pour the buckets in, so our job is to pass the filled buckets down the line and up ladders to the top.

All of the jobs are equally difficult, because of the beaming sun, sloshing concrete, weight, and necessity for synchonization. I filled most of the various group task roles, as well as some maintenance roles throughout the day, (shout out to my Comm Professor, LisaMarie Luccioni!) so it stayed interesting. Of course we had a lot of great jokes and plenty of conversation while we were working, but according to Micah we finished in record time. It’s hard to believe that moving concrete requires so much teamwork, but I’ll attribute our efficiency to it. In the single photo below you’ll see the house that we were working on in the background (we have a good group photo on another camera, too).

One of the very rewarding things was to see some of the residents who are already living in the finished houses. Some of the children came out, and were very happy to see us. There are gardens outside where people are growing their own produce and goods to sell or consume, and the insides of the houses are immaculate. It’s rewarding to know that we will be making so many more peoples’ lives better, and that they are doing the same for themselves. I don’t know if I mentioned before that the local people who were helping us are some of the inhabitants of the houses, so they have a lot of equity and pride in them as well.

By the end of our work day around 3:00 PM, we piled in the van bound directly for the ocean. We all jumped directly from the van into the water, without even changing (we were covered head to toe in concrete anyway!). The water was quite refreshing, but we were all exhausted. Luckily, Lance purchased hammocks for the house, and I was able to steal a short nap. It’s just past 9:30 now and everyone is in bed for the night – we’re pretty certain that we’ll be dog tired tomorrow while we’re pouring the floor on the same house.

To our dismay, the DSL connection at the house went out today. I think it was the phone line along the road somewhere because we can’t get a sync with the telco – so we have been tethering through my BlackBerry, which is incredibly slow. Until we get that fixed, we’ll only have one picture for today’s post; it encapsulates the major details anyway.

Pouring walls is awesome!

I would have no problem walking outside any time of day and hearing the surf break just yards away. The patio is beautifully simplistic; it’s the hub that connects all parts of the house, it has ample space to dine and socialize, boasts a clear view of the beach, and is all under roof. If we had a hammock, it would sway lightly in the breeze and I’d imagine myself reading a book cradled inside.

Okay, that’s enough with my fluffy imagery stuff…today we actually had to get down to work! When we departed for the work site around 9:30 the sun was already fully ablaze overhead. Today’s worksite was on top of a mountain. I’m incredibly surprised how well-developed the roads are, even to what seem like some of the most remote places. Katie, Megan, Jeff and I have termed certain areas to look like “Africa” (we’re already planning a trip there) because they are exactly what you’d imagine on the horizon of a safari. Such views could be seen in the valley beside the mountain that we drove up.

Bystanders on the roads could hear a mobile dance club, as Jonathan’s fan boomed with sounds from the 90’s – 2000’s and swayed as we rocked inside. What an interesting time. Andy had a chance to show off his crazy dancing skills – I think Caroline has a video of it, which should definitely make its way to YouTube when we get back.

When we reached the top, which was a pretty steep climb, we were in the middle of a large dirt soccer field. Beside the field and on the sides of the mountain are numerous houses constructed of corrugated metal, primarily with dirt floors. The owners of the house where we were working had dirt floors, so we were mixing concrete to pour floors inside their house. Part of the work had already been done by another group, so we had two floors left to pour. Fortunately we had a motorized concrete mixer (Megan told me about how she manually mixed concrete in Nicaragua). Our jobs entailed dumping buckets of sand, gravel, water, and bags of cement into the mixer, then shoveling the concrete into buckets and passing them down the hill bucket brigade style. As you can imagine, blistering sun and heavy buckets weren’t the optimal conditions, but we had a great time. Switching jobs pretty often broke up what may have been monotony, and we still had a chance to chat.

As it turned out, we successfully mixed and moved all of the concrete that we needed before lunch. We thoroughly cleaned all of the tools and forms and we were done extremely early! Micah and Geronimo (another Fuller Center employee here) were pretty surprised that we had finished so early. Micah ran into town and picked up pupusas and fruit for our hearty lunch, which we enjoyed even more from our hard work!

Since we had finished so early, we headed back down the mountain to our house in La Libertad. First order when we arrived back (after another dance club style ride) was to jump in the ocean. The water was extremely refreshing and we switched to the pool because of the strong undercurrents. One of the locals climbed a coconut tree and chopped down several coconuts, cutting off the tops so we could enjoy the ‘coconut milk’ in the pool. Around the same time Lance, the SBC treasurer, arrived. He’s going to be spending the rest of the quarter here, so he’ll also be working with us for the next few days.

After the pool, we had a lot of free time for chatting and playing games. Lance introduced us to a Polar Bear Dice Game, which, consequently, I still haven’t figured out; hopefully tomorrow! It was great to add someone else to the group, and we had time to hang out and get to know each other. This is one of the things that I most hoped would happen – forming friendships with some new folks that I definitely wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to meet. Working together for the first day, and our earlier adventures have definitely brought us closer together.

Tomorrow morning we’re going to head to “the Project” as Micah refers to it. It is a grouping of 30 houses that have already been constructed by the Fuller Center, and 30 more that are under construction. Departure is at 7:30, so we’ll be getting up bright and early!

We started the day with our 45ish minute ride into San Salvador to the Union Church – which is an English-speaking church that Micah and his host family attend. The service was great, and it was awesome to meet so many cool people – some of them work at embassies, some of them are expats working here, and one lady I talked to had retired here from San Fran (I know all of this because we had coffee and snacks after church).

The next adventure was to a tourist market area. Alas, I had looked all over San Salvador when I was running around there and couldn’t find one of these – ended up being typical touristy junk, but I found two things that were pretty cool, so I picked them up for a grand total of two dollars. Our trip to a closed pupuseria left our driver on a search for the next best option. When he’s on a mission, we’re getting there!

Lunch stop ended up being a pretty large cafeteria specializing in pupusas, but also including tacos, etc. I got a couple of each, and we had some nice conversation while we waited a while for our food – all of it was pretty excellent.

Away we headed to El Puerto del Diablo (the mouth of the Devil). As you may have seen on an earlier post, the destination came highly recommended by Liz Yauch, a friend who has done this trip before, and I didn’t realize why until we got there. The location looked pretty touristy, but as we started up a short trail, we were presented with two options: climb though a rock crevice leading most of the way up the face, or walk around 3-4 times longer (Micah dissuaded everyone from the latter option). I was second up a wrought iron ladder, right behind Kara, and was slightly alarmed by the angle of the ascent. The climb after the ladder left us 100 feet or so below the top of the crevice, and a pretty steep hike the rest of the way up, involving crawling though a tight space under many rocks. In all, the slightly terrifying experience was a great team bonding time, as we helped each other up the steep inclines.

Views from the top of this mountain were absolutely breathtaking. We were told that on a clear day (unfortunately it was a bit cloudy) one can see the ocean on one side, and the northern border opposite. Regardless, the views were phenomenal. We decided that this adventure would require extensive waivers and various cautioning signage in the US.

On our descent, we actually took the longer trail aforementioned, which was pretty tame. When we got to the bottom, some of us enjoyed bags of water for only twenty cents. Caroline, Megan, Katie, Jeff, and I decided to climb the second peak, which was a little higher, but had stairs the entire way – no rock climbing necessary. Vistas from this point were equally enthralling. There was a short zip line and rappelling area on the way down, but Katie convinced Megan and I not to do it J.

The ride back to La Libertad where our house is was interesting (I’m pretty sure I could write that about any time that we drive on the roads here!) and was a great time for conversation, singing, and hitting speed bumps at high rates of speed. As soon as we reached the house, we jumped in the pool until our spaghetti dinner, which was very refreshing.

After dinner, we lit the fire that we had dug on the beach yesterday and had a great time hanging out down there. The neighbor even brought over a bunch of dried palm fronds which really stoked up the fire! Later, Jeff, Caroline, Sarah, and Andy started to teach me Euchre. Perhaps I’ll try to play tomorrow, but they were all tired and the second game didn’t happen. In all, another awesome day; we’re all stoked to head to San Luis Talpa tomorrow morning to get started on the work!

(Oh, by the way, most of us were incredibly sore from surfing. If you ever attempt it, you’ll discover several muscle groups that you probably haven’t ever used ALL OVER YOUR BODY!)

Waking up in a new location was a little different – not as posh as the hotel, but still quite nice compared to my expectation – and certainly nice to be with the rest of the group (I had a good time on my own, but they’re awesome)! Our “house” is interesting. Pictures might be worth a thousand words here, but basically there is a central area under a roof with open sides, a kitchen in the middle, open seating, and sets of bedrooms on both sides of the open space. All of this looks directly onto the ocean, which only happens to be a couple hundred feet from my door! The beach is completely beautiful – nice sand, pretty clean, and the surf is amazing (keep reading for more about that). We’ve got running water, albeit no hot (but it’s warm enough outside that it doesn’t matter!). Beds are arranged in “bunk” style on my side, where most of us are staying and there are two semi-private bedrooms with queen-size beds on the opposite. There’s actually a pool in front of our house, but we haven’t used it yet.

Breakfast this morning was around 8:00; most of us had no problem getting up at 7:30, or earlier. When I walked out, Austin was flipping pancakes, in the kitchen with Yolanda, the caretaker and cook extraordinaire. Coffee was, of course fresh, and by far the strongest I’ve had in El Salvador thus far – most excellent (and I’m sure locally sourced – vibrant, well balanced, nutty tones, for any coffee snobs following). After breakfast, we chatted and checked out the beach in our back yard while waiting on the driver.

At 9:00 we headed about 40 minutes up the beach to take surfing lessons and hang out. (We’re not supposed to go too far in the water behind our house because of strong undercurrents.) The ride was a little long on the way there – remember how I said that people kind of drive erratically? Well worth the drive was the beach – from 10:00 until about 11:30 we enjoyed relaxing on the beach and battling the surf. We had all gotten plenty of sun when we headed to the restaurant at the surf instructor’s lodge (also on the beach). The food was excellent, and it was quite a nice atmosphere with an upstairs covered deck with hammocks for dining and lounging.

A bit later, we headed out for surfing lessons. I decided to go with the first group (we split into two groups of six). We got some instruction on the beach before heading out, each of us with our own instructor. The mission: stand up and surf the whitewater – the surf that comes after the big waves break. I had an awesome time and was actually able to stand up quite a bit! (Unfortunately I don’t have the photos yet to prove it, but I think Andy or Austin has them.)

On the ride back, we stopped for popsicles and the ride seemed a lot shorter (the ride home always feels shorter, doesn’t it?). Dinner and games/chatting the followed were also great. Tomorrow we’re heading in to El Salvador for church and then to go hiking!

Today was quite unexpected. When I got up, I thought that I wanted to go to an archaeological site, but I found the price, and it was too high, so I changed my plans. The hotel called a taxi to take me to the Volcan San Salvador (Volcano) that’s behind the city. On the drive up we got to have a good chat, and he didn’t mind my incredibly broken Spanish. The volcano was pretty cool; there were tons of school kids also visiting (I mean like 5 school buses on a really narrow trail!), so I got to talk to some of them in English and they helped me with Spanish and took my picture. To be honest, it was a little disappointing…maybe I had some grand expectation of flowing lava or something. Not sure. Anyway, it was neat to see since I had never seen a volcano crater before. Apparently I could have hiked all the way down, but I felt like I could see enough from the top, so I headed back to Carlos’ cab.

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped and had pupusas in someone’s backyard on the side of the mountain. As we waited for the food, I was showing Carlos the places that I had visited on my map and he asked me if I had been zipling. I hadn’t even seen the advertisement on the map and it turned out that the place was only $25 and 15 minutes on the other side of the mountain.

The location of the ziplining place (Café Maria too) was well worth the short drive and nominally extra sum. The place is a plant nursery, coffee and fruit farm, and café with amazing vistas as well! We waited for about a half an hour and chatted with some of the coffee growers while drinking some of their joe. I couldn’t resist but pick up two bags of coffee that was grown and roasted right there.

When I started on the zipline adventure, my adrenaline was flowing and I was ecstatic to have happened upon the opportunity… the amazing vistas from the side of the mountain, above coffee plants and plantain trees were breathtaking (and my breath may or may not have been taken away by the lack of earth below me).

Carlos was awesome and took me to the nearby mall, where I once again tried to find a post office. There was another hour and half adventure therein, but I accomplished my mission…finally! I walked from the mall back to the hotel, which was about 20 minutes, and found a nice Italian restaurant nearby and had some lasagna. Now I’m waiting for Micah and Kara to pick me up and head to the airport to get the others! My future posts may be short or sporadic since we’ll be in San Luis Talpa…

I started off the day thoroughly enjoying the -2 hour time difference since I was able to get up at 8:30 my time and still get an early start. The hotel’s breakfast buffet on the roof was excellent. While I was up there, I snapped some pictures of the view.

After breakfast I headed toward to Museo de Arte, only to find it closed. Still walked around and took some pictures, and the guard let me peek inside. Next door was El Teatro Presidential (Presidential Theatre). Inside an orchestra was practicing, so I enjoyed for a bit before moving on. Since hindsight is 20/20, I wouldn’t have worn my sandals today since I ended up walking at least 6 miles around the city… I also would have put on the SPF 50 instead of 30. My first adventure took me through a nice residential neighborhood toward the Monuemento A El Salvador Del Mundo (Monument to the Savior of the World). That monument was a good picture spot, as there was a little park in the middle of the traffic circle where the monument stands and I got some park-goers to take my photo. Onward I walked toward El Metrocentro (the city center).

Along the way I stopped to see a stadium (but I couldn’t enter). Later, I encountered a nice park (there are quite a few nice parks throughout the city – kind of reminds me of Barcelona, but in a little worse repair). Inside the park there was a small art museum full of nude paintings. Most of them were quite beautiful, and I could understand about half of the curator’s talk to a group of art students who were also visiting. Continuing toward the city center, I encountered a few more parks and finally reached a street that was filled with vendors. Someone that I spoke with said that El Salvador is #2, only behind China, for counterfeit goods. Not sure if that’s actually true, but this was a convincing display, since I saw as many Chanel sunglasses and “designer” clothes as at markets in China.

After the market was my destination that I was looking for – Catedral Metropolitano (Metropolitan Cathedral). I think that you’ll also be impressed by the décor on the inside, which was also a nice place to rest. Walking around the Palacio National (National Palace), I found a little cafeteria style place where the locals were dining, so I stopped in and grabbed two tamales, french bread, and a coffee for $1.25. Very tasty! I embarked on a journey along a different route to my hotel to take a little siesta (the sun had really worn me out!).

I love walking around in every city I visit, I really think it’s the best way to see everything. But here, it’s nice to walk around in barrios (neighborhoods), but it’s not really nice to walk between them. There are some that aren’t as nice as others, and some don’t have good (or any) sidewalks. Cars rule the roads, and it seems like each driver for him/herself. Ultimately, I ended up walking about half-way and caught a cab the rest of the way back.

After recharging, I headed out to a restaurant about a 20 minute walk away called Las Cofradias. This is an authentic El Salvadoran buffet-style restaurant. Both of the staff people were really nice and explained to me what each dish was – I tried almost all of them. I think they were laughing at me when I was taking pictures of the food on my table. That’s fair. The cook made me some pupsas! Everything was absolutely delicious. After returning and catching some views of the sunset from the roof (yea, I know, I’m kind of obsessed with the rooftop), I decided to return to my room… I can’t wait for everyone to arrive tomorrow!