It begins!

The internet has been a bit sketchy here so this is the first day I have been able to post.  All arrived on Saturday with few flight problems.    We picked everyone up and headed toward the Mexican border which only is about a half hour from the airport.  This year we had no inspections at the Mexican customs and sped right down to the Posada. 

The Posada is a large volunteer center built by Esperanza which can hold up to 80 Volunteers.   We knew we were joining about 10 Volunteers from Seattle who come from Trinity Lutheran Church, but we were also met by 20 High School students from Davis, CA.   They were scheduled to go to Honduras, but because of the violence there, their trip was canceled.  It is a group of young people who have been in a Spanish immersion program since kindergarten.  This trip was another step in that education process.   Nice young people and hard workers.  Another surprise was that (Dr) Marcel Tam met us.  He was a college student 17 years ago when I first took a group from LIU to build houses here. 

We settled in on Saturday and got to know the larger team a bit.  On Sunday we headed to a small church just down the street.    After Mass, we loaded up the van and headed to Puerto Nuevo which is a little fishing village about half hour away.   Some of the group went shopping and another group headed to a restaurant looking out onto the ocean for fish tacos.   It was a wise choice.  Our final day of relaxing ended.

Yesterday, Monday, began with a large meeting of the whole group with the director of volunteers who spoke to us of our work, safety and many things we needed to know.  We loaded up the Vans and headed out to our work areas.   The "Shrine" portion of the group headed south to a very remote piece of land on a mountain that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.  I will get pictures today!   Being close to the ocean provided us with a beautiful view and wonderful breeze.  It was hot and so we appreciated the breeze.

We were met by "Louis" who owned the land and currently lives in his broken down trailer.  He complains that it is very hot in his little mobile home. Louis had been a truck driver in the US and knew of the Providence-Boston area.  The walls of the building already up and our work was to prepare the roof for a 'pour.' The roofs are cement also but before the cement can be poured (buckets of cement lifted to the roof one by one) forms have to be made to hold the cement in.  That is our work for the next few days.   Our work is more exacting than hard.   We value Andrew Sanchez, part of our group who comes with amazing carpentry skills.

Here are a few pictures of our first days.