I hate to say it ...again... But Wednesday was a hard day too! We started out with breakfast... Many of us have discovered that there IS a microwave and it will successfully heat up cold eggs... And that the bread, available upon request, is delish! We were chatting on the ride to the site about how the cats around are probably a good thing because we haven't seen any rats or mice. We got to the job site at 8:30 and started working right after stretching and saying hi to the puppy, which was adorable. Cassandra should run for PETA president for sure. By the way, stretching makes us look pretty old, especially when the kids try to imitate us. We had a fallen soldier today... Lilian stayed home with a fever :(
Task one of the day was finishing the gravel. We sure did take a lot of trips back and forth. There was no easy job. Some were filling the bags with gravel, others were loading the bags onto the carts, then pushing the cart to our build site, and then raking the gravel. The kids were such good helpers doing this. I can't believe how they can just walk through the gravel barefoot, playing with rocks and shovels.
We had to put frames in the gravel where the bathrooms would go. They will be tied into the septic system (4 houses per pit).
George had the bag unloading down really well. The key was to flip it while you drop so the gravel starts to come out of the bag, then you just pick the bag up. Look at that form!!
Once we were done with the gravel, Jun warned us that we would need more gravel in each bag when we were mixing the concrete. They would need to be half full. Yikes, that's heavy. We were probably hovering at around 1/3 full white doing the foundation gravel, and that was tough.
How cute is this. 3 different kids throughout the day picking up the paint roller, captured on camera by 2 of us.
Lollipop chicken. Talk about YUM. I thought I would get skinny over here, definitely not the case so far.
Steve get a quick massage on our lunch break.
Next we had to set all the rebar. We carried it to the site and had to cut it with this huge bolt cutter that was attached to the ground next to the site. Then Leon cut a bunch of wire ties and we tied all the rebar using a nail to tighten it.
To all the structural engineers... Look how good these wire ties are. Good splice huh??
This is how Filipinos squat down to tie wires...
...and here is how the Americans do it :)
Annnnnd then back to bagging gravel. We need more for the concrete, which we will be pouring tomorrow. I asked Jun how long this would take the workers to do, and he said it would take 5 workers about a week to do. He said that foreigners were usually really hard workers and we were doing a good job so far... Yayyyy:). Maybe his prediction of us completing 10 houses isn't THAT far fetched??
Many of the workers wear tshirts around their heads. Joan thinks they look like ninjas, and wants to learn how to do it. But apparently it is because having darker skin indicates a lower class here. The darker you are, the poorer you are. So different from the US, where tan is beautiful. Don't worry mom, I am wearing lots of sunblock. Cherry asked me today what the secret was to staying sexy. Haha I was covered in dirt, sweat, and rust and hobbling around.... How could I answer?
We annihilated that gravel pile. Show us your muscles team!!
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