Monday, February 11, 2008

Thought of the day-Dennis
From the Tommy Sands (Irish) song The Last Irish Rose an eye for an eye until everyone is blind “says what is hopping in many places today. In contrast what we do here today may help break that cycle through love and understanding.

Journal-Jean
Today was the first day of immersion our respective sites. Five of us headed to Cebadilla for our project at the local school. The community and previous Global Volunteers had nearly completed the lunch room, a spacious, airy building next to the one room school which as of today and the beginning of a new school year has 19 students. I varnished baseboards and moldings for the interior of the new lunch room. Scraping the rusted chain link fence was the major and most difficult job.

The wind was blowing very hard and Dennis washed on the back site, mostly on a ladder, Elvin. In the afternoon Emily joined me inside to avoid the sun which by lunch was taking its toll on her and red was definitely her color. We finished two coats of varnish on the boards and if I understood correctly, we will be painting a school house wall ma/nana.

Lunch was delightful and delicious prepared by the local team leader’s wife. Ileana played the guitar, this children and grandchildren came in and out and his cute little black dog eyed us from just outside the front door. She, “lint” in English has three puppies just eight days old and cute as can be.

The CASEM group moved a “mountain” of dirt with shovels and pick axes loaded the wheelbarrow, this became pothole specialists in a morning.


They, too, had a sumptuous lunch prepared on site by the CASEM chef and her helpers. They the Global Volunteers readily asked to do kitchen duty to delay finishing their pothole project. Then saved by Nia, work lessened, coffee was served and work was suspended for the day.

All in all it was a very good first day. We had fun conversing with words, gestures and laughter and actually got quite a bit done thanks to Elvin and Ileana who were organized and ready for us.