Here is the second update from the UBC Thunderbird contingent that is building homes in El Salvador with Global Village.
Wednesday we got a special treat, we left work early to go down into the tiny village of San Lorenzo, the birthplace of Paola, the grandmother that will be giving the houses we help build as gifts to her children. This is by far one of the smallest villages many of us have ever seen. Just outside the park was the open air restaurant where Paola and two of her daughters taught us how to make popusas, which is a small round corn tortilla filled with cheese and/or beans. They were so good!!! The children of the families played in the streets and had fun with us. After we were all finished we presented T-Bird and Vancouver Olympic pins to our grateful hosts.
The Next morning Paola welcomed us to the job site proudly wearing her T-Bird pin. During our morning break, we presented all the masons working with us olympic pins to thank them for patiently teaching us and allowing us to work with them. We finished work early that day to go to the water park in San Vincente. The water park had a chlorinated pool and two fresh water pools which were connected with a waterfall. There were fish in the fresh water pools that liked to nibble on your feet... none of us were really a fan of that. The T-Bird swim team was well represented when Jen raced the lifeguard at the pool and beat him by 10 metres. It was great to be able to cool off from the scorching afternoon heat and it left us feeling refreshed and ready for our last work day of week 1.
Friday was our last full day of work before the weekend break. Even though it was long and hot there were many laughs and a lot of work got done. The group working on the trenches is now bending and tying rebar before they start putting up the cement blocks. A couple of sidewalks also went up around the other houses, as well as some final painting, sanding, and cleaning tiles. The first house of the five on the lot was completed by the end of the day and we were so happy with our first week of work.
- The Global Village team
