Almost Done!

Today we just worked on the house for a half day and now we are going to walk around Santa Cruz. Later, we are going to go back to our hotel to hang out by the lake. We might rent some canoes or kayaks to paddle around. We only have one full day of work left on Monday, because the Hondurans don´t work on Sundays, and we basically have the walls completely up.

Yesterday, we spent a full day at the work site and got a lot done. We needed to put up scaffolding to reach the walls we were working on, and by the end of the day, we had to raise the height of our platforms. According to Tim´s thermometer, it reached 105 degrees. A lot of us got a little sunburned on our necks and shoulders, but nothing too bad.

We also had to dig a trench for a sewage pipe that will run from the house to a pit about 10 yards away. There is a team of a son and father working on the pit, and they started working about the same time we did. It is 12 feet deep now, and they still have another 3 or 4 feet to go. They always seem to be joking and having a good time, despite doing the most work of anyone on the work site.

Sometimes it seems like we have been teaching the locals more English than we are learning Spanish. The girls taught Ale and Jaime to say ¨hi,¨¨thank you¨and ¨good bye.¨The construction
foreman has learned to say ¨hammer¨to ask for the hammer, and also has learned many of our names. We still get weird looks when we drive down the streets in our big white van, because we are the only white people in town, but the locals are all very friendly and inviting and always say hi to us.

We are all looking forward to a break this weekend, but it´s hard to believe that we are almost done with work on the house. Tomorrow, we are going to go hiking to some caves and waterfalls, and I think there´s also a zipline that we can go on. We are all enjoying the nice weather here - so far it hasn´t rained during the day yet - and don´t miss the weather in Minnesota at all :)

Have a good weekend,

Mike