#23 - A good day's work

25/02/2011

I am writing this at 11:30pm with a whole host of insects buzzing and crawling all around the room and the laptop.
There's one about the size of a bumblebee which is making an almighty racket and unnerving me to be honest.
But I shall continue regardless.

Today saw the culmination of two phases.
First, there was the complete end of training as we had our last session with Don. He finished speaking about damaged emotions and I wish he could take lessons for weeks and weeks, it's just fascinating listening to him talk.

We then had lunch of a Panamanian soup with rice in which was delicious, and then some fried rice that was nice and crispy for seconds.

We then proceeded to the house/shack once again for our third day of work.
Jonny and Jarett got to work on the other half of the roof, while Andy and I set about finishing the french drain - we lined the edges of the hole we'd dug with massive rocks to provide a route for the water to run down and away into the street.
This took ages as we had to shift some hench rocks, including one which required massive effort from Andy, Ryan and myself to just about manouvre into position.

The buzzing has stopped now and I'm worried that either the insect is hiding, has entered my room or is crawling about my person.
I'll continue anyway.

We made some progress lining the drain and then I went to help Jonny and Jarett with the roof - they had done some brilliant work cutting and nailing in some supports horizontally across the ceiling to provide strength and also something to nail the tin roof sheets to.

Work was temporarily halted by a downpour of rain - the roof we put up yesterday held its ground - during which I improvised a game of hoop-lah with the kids using an old tyre and a crowbar. We then went with renewed vigour to finish the job.
I can't remember what order things happened but by 6:30, the other half of the roof was completed and the french drain was filled with pipes and rocks and looking pretty fine. We also put in a gutter on the rain-facing wall which makes it the only house in the area with guttering.

During all this, the girls again managed to entertain the kids from this family as well as some more locals, and did such a great job - all of them were having great fun and experiencing some real love which is usually shared out equally between many kids but for today was directed intensely on each of them individually.

It was a stirling effort by all to complete the work, and by the end we were all a mix of tiredness and overwhelmingly satisfaction at having made such a big difference to the lives of a whole family.
It certainly wasn't easy, but it certainly was worth it.

Afterwards we went to Rene (who helped us bring the materials for the work) and his wife's house for dinner, and then retired home to confirm plans for tomorrow. We are putting on a 2ish-hour event for local kids which includes a variety of games, music, drama and loads more, and as such takes a lot of planning.
However under Jonny's stewardship, everything seems to be in order.

Needless to say I'm shattered so that's all for today, but we can all go to bed knowing that a poor and desparate family have adequate protection against the crippling wind and rain that is experienced regularly here. If it's made them happier, I'm honoured to be part of the team responsible for doing so.
Thank God, not us, for that.

Good night.

JG