The morning started off on a humorous note; we had to get up early to start pouring concrete - and ended up getting up a little too early! Through a snafu of phone alarms and time changes one room got up at 2:30 am and started making coffee and eggs before they noticed it... It was pitch black out and the roosters weren't even up yet! Two members in particular were all dressed and ready to go before they checked their watch and and headed back up. The other room was ticked off and wondered what all the noise was about, but everyone was excited to go back to a warm sleeping bag! Things were all smoothed over when the early risers made scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Everyone had extra coffee this morning because it was very cold - frost covered the van.
The men of the rehab center started mixing two giant piles of concrete by hand (5 yards at a time!) As the mix got ready they filled 5 gal. pails and men carried it up the ramps on their shoulders. A total of 15 yards (or 1 1/2 cement trucks-full) of concrete got poured on the roof. It was magical to watch the small army of men and concrete being mixed, scooped, carried, poured, and scraped. The whole operation from start to finish only took about 3 hours.
Lee had the rest of the crew quickly laying tile for most of the day, and we were able to finish off both rooms. But before we could start cutting & laying tile we had to do a bunch of work getting the right tools. Our grinder was burned up so we had to find a new diamond blade and grinder at the store down the street. The storekeeper loaned us a huge grinder for free, and even threw in a free pliers and 3 fresh tamales for us to take. We also purchased a new drill from our shopkeeper friend to mix the tile mud since we had 2 die out on us yesterday. It was fortunate for us that he decided to open for business today after 2 days of being closed for rain.
One of the leaders from the shelter made a surprise visit with a tall stick full of pink and blue cotton candy - the men loved it! We treated ourselves to a few fresh soda pops from the corner market at lunch - Coke is still served in bottles too.
Del the plumber started work on installing some used toilets onto the freshly tiled floor, and Ken punched holes in the cinder block wall in order to get access to the pipes for the shower. Ed & Jeff did such a good job with building bunks the other day Scott enlisted them to "kit-up" another set for the room with the new roof. Lumber is very expensive here, 2" x 4" boards are about $5 each, so these beds will be very luxurious.
We had an "authentic American" dinner tonight at a lovely Michigan-based institution named Dominos. The pizza was good and the comradeship was even better. We were blessed to have an English-speaking waiter who enjoyed talking with us about life in "TJ." A great day of work and fun, but we'll probably get up a little later tomorrow morning! :-)
(Remember: If you would like to see any of these pictures close-up just click on it and it will load a larger copy of it - Enjoy!)
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