Today's blog from Honduras comes from Chris Dupre, one of our regular Saturday volunteers.
"The masons were so pleased with our heavy lifting the first day that they decided to teach the team members some of the more skilled tasks. Some volunteers were taught to bend rod for re-bar, while others were taught how to tie it off. The masons needed some re-bar beams for headers above the windows, doors and porch before the roof goes on. At first, 9 beams of re-bar didn´t sound like much, but it quickly became apparent that it involved a lot of work (added up to cutting 810 feet of rod, bending 405 pieces, and tying 1215 pieces of wire.) Daunting, but accomplished.
While half the group was being taught the basics of re-bar construction, the other half was taught to mix the mud for the adobe. Basically, you stomp around in a mud pit the size of a kiddie pool while adding barrels of pine straw. Good exercise and fun... but it can be tricky to keep your balance as the mud apparently doesn't like being stomped on and will grab your boot any chance it gets.
The masons had a productive day as well, and after lunch needed 300 more adobe bricks moved to the houses. No official count was made, but we filled up all the space they had for us. (I´ll call it 350)
Day two = success
The after work activities were lighter than normal; a short tour of a local cigar factory and some free time before dinner."
In the photo are two team members constructing the re-bar beams. Wow - looks like a lot of work! At least they got to work in some shade.