Wednesday October 9, 2013

The morning started off with some people catching up on the computer to update status or catch up on email.  Another group left the house and went out for a morning stroll to find non-instant coffee.  This ended up being a challenge and most coffee that comes in good sized bags is instant and the lack of Spanish speaking individuals makes it all the better experience.  After another great breakfast we began our day.

One group headed off to the school in Paraxaj.  This is a dual classroom school with about 50 students.  We started off with a clothing drive and started to funnel in individual students to equip them with sweaters, shirts and pants and possibly shoes.  This went over great.  While that was taking place the second team at the school was organizing games.  

This included playing with the parachute, playing soccer and drawing on the soccer field (concrete) with sidewalk chalk.  

A great moment from here was that 3 girls recognized that Peggy and Garry were a couple and the girls started to draw hearts on the court with Peggy and Garry written in them.  The groups were then rotated and the sidewalk chalk drawings went from hearts to tracing bodies. 

The 2 groups of students were then brought together and goodie bags were handed out to every boy and girl. These were prepared by the grade 2 students at Prince Albert Public School back home.  The goodie bags included craft materials, school supplies and a toy.  

After this happened Tim and Juli met up with their sponsored family and had some bonding time and exchanged a few gifts as well as a lot of love.  The families are so appreciative.

While a portion of the GMT headed to the school in Paraxaj, the other half stayed back at our housing complex to finish the walls of the build a home program which is a natural progression throughout the week.

When both teams gathered lunch was had which was amazing chicken salad sandwiches.

After lunch the larger and handiest portion of the group headed to the training center.  Some were dedicated to build a new wall out of metal studs and drywall.  There was a lot of discussion regarding how the wall should look and function and after some constructive brainstorming a decision was made of how it should be built.  The other half that headed to the training center hosted a sewing session with 5 trained ladies and they were able to completely finish a quilt.

While the handy people went to the training center the non-handy people were left behind to build a door.  It was not planned this way but this is the way it ended up.  The door came along quite well and after several bent nails were discarded the door was complete.  The team continued to load trucks with all the walls that have been built during the week and delivered to the cement pad that was poured earlier in the week.  This led to some great laughs.  The first incident was trying to fit our mason/carpenter into a single bench dodge ram along with Doug, Brian, Juli and Tim.  That’s 5 in the front of a truck that holds 3.  If this wasn’t funny enough the mason/carpenter couldn’t reach the gas and brake pedals.  He then proceeded to pull his seat forward.  This left Brian with one butt cheek on the driver seat and one butt cheek on the rest of the bench.  This was a good stretch for Brian.

The second incident occurred while moving the second load of walls to the home.  Another vehicle was added as we needed to load 2 20 foot x 3 inch boards into a very small Datsun truck.  Loading the boards into the truck wasn’t a problem but having 5 feet in the truck bed and 15 feet hanging out was an issue.  Tim then decided to sit on the boards in the bed of the truck so that they wouldn’t fall out.

This was fun keeping them in the truck but Tim managed to throw candy out the back of the truck to the boys and girls.  By the time we arrived to the cement pad there were 20-30 kids following the truck.

If that wasn’t enough the locals wanted to make fun of Brian and decided that it would be a good idea for him to get on their horse.   It appeared that Brian hadn’t mounted a horse recently and this proved to be hilarious to the locals.  The mount wasn’t graceful and the dismount was despicable.  Great laughs all around.

While visiting this home in Corrales we quickly noticed the shoes that were being worn weren’t adequate.  While coming back to our complex we headed to the Parramos square to buy some shoes and will deliver them tomorrow.

The teams then reconvened at our complex to a beautiful lasagna dinner and then gathered to share the moments of the day so that this article could be written.  We are all quickly learning that a hug goes a long way.

Tim Myers