Trip 1 Day 1

Today, we woke up, got dressed in our work clothes, made some PB & J sandwiches and headed to the town squre to meet our crew leaders.

Joe Collins, the founder of the project was here to greet us with Oscar, the overall project manager and the job foremen. After introductions, we hopped in the back of the pick-up truck (with the Clemson seat cushions that we brought with us as a donation for this very pupose) and headed 30 minutes up the mountain to the town of Santa Maria. After the truck could not go any farther up a side road, Henyo and Edgar, our crew chiefs led us up on foot the rest of the way to Cesar & Isabella's house where our tools and supplies awaited us.

Cesar & Isabella are parents of 8 kids (whose names I have not memorized yet). Three of the younger boys were at school in the morning, but we got to meet them later in the afternoon. At the house with their parents were the three teenage daughters, a young son (looked to be about 3 or 4 years old) and a 20 day old baby.

After meeting the family, we got to work right away. Today's goal was to dig the foundation of the house and fill it with cement. Long story short, that's what we did and were finished by 1:30 PM (8 able bodied men work pretty fast). Tomorrow should be a longer day.

This family of 10 live on the side of a hill with a beautiful view of Agua Volcanoe. In contrast to the view was the famiy's 3 room bamboo home. I only counted 3 beds, so if you do the math, somebody is sleeping on the dirt floor every night. It took all of 3 minutes for us to realize what a major thing this new home will be for the family.

At our discussion tonight, most of us agreed that one of the things that struck us the most was Cesar. There is no doubt that he is the leader in that family. He and hs son sell ice cream from a cart in town for the family's income but today he spent working with us - all the time with a giant smile and an excitement that quite frankly I have not had myself for anything since I was a kid.

Now we're waiting for the Patricks to get out of the shower and get dressed so that we can go get some dinner. Based on experience wth the Patricks so far, we should be leaving in about 2 hours. Actually, only one of the Patricks is slow moving (I won't say which), but it's good. Every group needs a slow mover to remind them to relax.

-Fred