Trabajo Rapido Es Buen Trabajo

Hello again from Nicaragua,

There is a lot for us to update you on, but we will start with a brief discussion of our progress on the school. Week number two was a very productive week and we nearly finished all of the walls by mid-day on Saturday. Considering that on Monday we started with only one half of one wall, it shows how hard everyone is working to get the children the new school that they deserve. There is rumor that we are on pace to construct our school in record time, and that knowledge is definitely acting as a carrot for everyone when the work gets tough.

To give you a basic description of what the school looks like, think large rectangle about 60 feet by 30 feet that is split into two rooms with separate doors from the outside. The long sides of the school will basically be left open with large windows to provide the students and teachers with a nice airy atmosphere to learn and teach in. As we travel to and from Esteli on the weekends, we have noticed that this is a very typical school design in the region.

Our next week will be mostly spent finishing the last remaining wall and preparing the tops of the walls for the welder to come on Friday to start the roof and windows. Much of the work becomes skilled at this point so we will mainly be painting and mixing concrete. We are looking forward to some shorter work days that will hopefully allow us to explore more of the beautiful hills that surround Santa Maria. We look forward to sharing more pictures of the stunning scenery that we are lucky to look at every day.

In a new breakthrough last week, we were informed that the village has a soccer field and that soccer is played daily at 4:30 in the afternoon. After learning how to get to the field (it is literally over a small hill that boarders Taylor's back yard), we decided to bring our "futbol" skills to the pitch. Much to our dismay, the fellow players were not wearing work pants and some of them were even wearing cleats. The goals were made of bamboo looking wood that was put into pre-dug holes with one of them even including a cross bar. Instead of playing a nice easy small sided game, we were treated to a relatively intense full field game. Lucky for us though, the hard work we are putting in on the construction site is paying off and our lungs only burnt for two hours after the game. It was truly a great time and it was amazing how well we were able to communicate on the field with our teammates even though our Spanish is still a work in progress. It is clearly evident that sports allow people to bond over a common enjoyment even when a language barrier exists. We are already looking forward to the next game on Monday afternoon, and are hoping to bring a couple new soccer balls with us when we return from Esteli. Next up for us will be to work ourselves into one of the baseball games that supposedly happen from time to time. Based on our collective intramural softball careers, we figure that we will just be bad and not completely horrible.

We head back to Santa Maria in the morning and are looking forward to a big week of work. Check back again next weekend for more stories from this great experience.

Cheers,

Evan, John and Taylor