A 6:45 AM start to the day (and week). Our team gathered outside the Seagrape lobby, and walked over to Coco Lobo (http://www.cocolobo.com) for breakfast. Heavy rains overnight and a cloudy start to the day, and signs of rain, but it was dry during breakfast time. A nice breakfast overlooking the beach – perfect start to the day!
Lunch at Dina’s on day one: rice, beans, vegetables and shrimp with some delicious lemonade to go with it. Climbing the hill back after lunch was tough, but we had to get used to it.
Our goal for day 1 was to raise at least three walls, and by lunch time it looked like we were well on our way to meet that goal.
Dinner was at Half Moon Bay resort (no real sign boards for this place). Although a 5 min. walk from Seagrape, Tom gave us a ride due to the giant mud puddles on the way. Food was good, but we had to be seated indoors due to the inclement weather. Hopefully, we’d come back again to enjoy the location and view.
Right after breakfast we jumped back onto the truck, and headed out to the colonia. Colonia might be a generic term, but we understand that this is the largest settlement (or cluster of homes) in the island. It might have started out a squatter community, but now all landowners have ownership documents. The family for whom we were going to build are landowners as well.
The dreaded hill climb: Tom drove us up a hill (on Sunday) to reach the build site, and it seemed like a tough hill to drive up, but little did I realize that that was the last time I was going to ride up that hill!
First stop was at the bottom of the hill – visited the restaurant (Dina’s) where we would be eating lunch for the coming few days. Next up – carry the tools, water and bags up the hill to the build site. The heavy overnight rains made the hill slippery, but we made it up alright. By 8 AM, we were ready to get going. Before we got started, we had a brief prayer (and the downpour started as we were in the middle of it). We were fully soaked, and we hadn’t even started our work day yet!
Mark and Tanya laid out the frame for the first wall (one of the sides), and off we were with the hammering! For the first time in my life, I started using a hammer for its real purpose – not just to hang pictures J Driving in these galvanized nails took some effort, but soon enough we realized that driving it in was hard, but pulling one of these nails out (if it wasn’t in right) was even harder! After the frame was done, we nailed in the plywood to the exterior and all ready to stand the wall up! Soon enough, we were on our way to the second side wall. A concerted effort led us to raising the second wall by lunch time!
Lunch at Dina’s on day one: rice, beans, vegetables and shrimp with some delicious lemonade to go with it. Climbing the hill back after lunch was tough, but we had to get used to it.Our goal for day 1 was to raise at least three walls, and by lunch time it looked like we were well on our way to meet that goal.
Post-lunch session saw us raising the two longer front walls, and the center beam. It rained pretty much throughout the afternoon, and sun came out in patches. Just as we thought we were dry, it rained again.
End of day one (photo below). Phew! Dreaded the sore muscles as I walked down the hill.
Called it an early night, so that we could rest up those sore muscles. 6:45 AM start again tomorrow!
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