Day 1 of Casita Building

Today was the first day of our Casita project, which is also, allegedly, the hardest working day of the week. We meet for devotions around 6:15, before our wonderful cook, Rita, served us breakfast. Following breakfast we headed out to the worksite with our Maestro Julian- who is also the same Maestro that we had the previous year. When we got there we started by forming a line while handing all the cement blocks from one person to the next until we got most of them on the foundation. We then proceeded to unconsciously split into teams and began working on the walls. Around 10:00 am we took a quick snack break in the shade to replenish our bodies and then we started back up to finish the afternoon. We continued to work in our groups to finish the walls and then before we knew it, it was time to head back to the LARC for lunch!:) The second the van door opened we all scattered to our rooms to hurry up and take our much needed showers. Once we were all clean and ready to eat we sat down for a nice lunch with Julian and our other Maestro Jorge. And then it was nap time! We were truly being a part of the Hispanic culture. Our next adventure lead us to our previous year’s casita, the home of Karina (age 23), Johanni (6), and Jorge (2), we were so excited to see the family!! We gave them a cross (in remembrance of last year), a framed picture of last year’s team, and I gave Johanni a framed picture of the two of us.:) We talked for a little while to see how she and her family are doing. She shared that they are all doing well and is very excited to see us again. After we returned to the LARC we had the opportunity to play futbol with some of the neighborhood kids in the park next door. It took them a while to warm up to us, but eventually we got them to play. It started to get late so we had to tell them goodbye, but we told them to come back the same time tomorrow and we would play with them again. Then we had our last devotion for the day and some of us decided to relax for awhile and the others decided it was time for some well deserved sleep. Tomorrow we have another busy day ahead of us. Right now we are ahead of schedule so please pray that we continue on this path and that we all stay hydrated and safe in this heat (because we are in this blistering heat of 95 degrees). :)

- Golden Girls