Chispas!

The pieces of the project are fitting together at last. Thursday we finished cutting all of the metal pieces for the tresses. While Ernesto, Kayla and Dustin worked on cutting and welding the metal, the rest of us painted the tresses and sifted sand for cement. Marla and I also finished resealing the windows with cement and brick.

After lunch, a group of us took some of the kids from the community we work with to another community in Quilla Collo that is also impoverished and often flooded. During the rainy season especially, the water runs down from the mountains and causes the nearby river to overflow into the area. Because of these conditions, many of the families in this community were living in tents when we arrived. Once there, we had the kids give this community some of the donations we brought with us (tshirts and stuffed animals). We want them to learn that this experience is not just about receiving donations from us every year but about giving donations as well. I think the kids were a little overwhelmed by the whole situation. It was crazy and chaotic, but fun to see the kids from the community we work with sharing toys and sizing up the other children for tshirts.

Yesterday (Friday), four of us went to check out a Bolivian non profit called Mano a Mano (www.manoamano.org) that we hope to partner with to build a clinic on our work site. Mano a Mano has built 118 clinics, 17 landing strips, 40 schools (equipped with homes for the teachers), and 37 infrastructure projects (roads and reservoirs). Their large, organized, and efficient organization was overwhelming and inspiring at the same time. I think we have a lot to learn from them and am looking forward to working with them more on our project.

At the site yesterday, a slow start gave way to a satisfying, productive finish. Let me regress. The day before (Thursday), the top of a supply truck caught the electric line to the building, unabashedly ripping it out of the transmitter down the street. So the first half of Friday was spent waiting pateintly for electricians to get the power flowing again. Our frustrations were converted into postive production after lunch, during which we successfully put up all tresses and crossbeams. The roof is the final step to be completed today!