December 2010,First Team , the day of the dig

Team Journal Day 2

8:00am

The two shuttles arrived on time to take us to the Cebadilla village and CASEM.

Group 1 consisted of Margaret, Alice and Rosanne traveling to CASEM. They were greeted upon their arrival in a very friendly manner. Their first task was sanding of the tables which were made from slabs of cedar, very rustic. A short while later they were offered coffee, tea and cookies. Then they were back to work putting sealant on the wood.

Their next task was becoming the cleaning crew for the shop, there was plenty of dust for them to clean. They had a lovely lunch, then walked to the cheese factory where they encountered a snake with blue diamonds on its back. They treated themselves to some ice cream at the cheese factory. They were then headed back to work where they priced lots of new merchandise and re-priced the coffee.


Group 2 consisted of Jess, Ryan, Jim, Sandra, Eric, Amy, Elle, Emiliene, Zeke, and our leader Nia. We headed back on our bumpy gravel road, we proceeded to drive to the village of Cebadilla which consists of 150 people. Elbin the Host Partner leader, described the project to us. The project was to add on one toilet, one shower and a special needs toilet to the community centre and church. After we understood the project we each provided any special skills we had that we could contribute to the project, many people were keen to do labour, painting, cement mixing, and anything else the community wanted.
We tour the school which had been newly renovated by previous Global Volunteers teams.

We got back to the site, Minor and Alvin mapped out the area to dig for the septic tank and trough. The septic tank area had to be 1 meter deep and the trough had to be 80 centimeters deep. Elle and Emily were working at the back of the community center removing dirt, clearing brush, and organizing the area. Everyone worked extremely hard digging and wheel barrowing, Erik’s wheel barrowing and Amy’s digging really stood out amongst the team.

We had one official break called by Nia and then stopped for lunch at 12:30. We went to a very nice home, had a great meal (rice, noodles, chicken and potato stew, salad, and fruit). We later had a nice tour of the garden and saw the nativity scene in their living room.

We took a shortcut back to work and continued our digging and wheel barrowing until shortly after 3. We did a clean up, wash down, and back on the bumpy ride to downtown Santa Elena for an ice cream treat.

Jim