Nicaragua Day Three

-

Well by day three some of us had already had Somoza's revenge-Anne was sick and not able to work. Did I mention that it was so hot that I sweat even in the shade? Here you can see Lauren, Ruth, Emily, Julia and Dorrit drinking water. Anne and I made our team of seven. We had lots of help, as we were working along side a team of Nicaraguan masons, and half the village must have turned out to lend a hand. We had to get the wall up half way, then pour the cement. It needed to dry from Wednesday at noon until Thursday morning. In this picture you can see the form for the concrete.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The finished product

-
Image
There's more to tell and I'll blog some more later, but here's our finished house, all but the roof. Here's our team, along with the masons and the family (and a few extra kids who we picked up along the way!)
Read more

Tomatoes

-
Image
So we think we have nothing to worry about, and we set up the Earth Boxes with mulch covers. These boxes are great-wheeled, with a staking set that comes with its own netting. We decide that there is no problem in leaving the boxes out. Here are some photos of us putting the boxes together. Here's Anne calling the Earth Box folks for some advice. Turns out we didn't need it-we got them up and working in no time, and Anne planted the tomato plants we bought at the Teatown Plant Sale. And here's what happened. Something ate through the cover-and left the tomato plants alone! Netting and duct tape to the rescue! So far, so good. Since the boxes are on wheels, we can wheel them around the property to follow the sun. Let's hope this works and we don't wind up with a $64 tomato!
Read more

Some final thoughts about my Nicaragua trip

-
Image
Now that I'm sleeping in my own bed, not doing "bug checks" at night (Dorritt was especially concerned about scorpions, and we did kill one) and showering in a real shower, I can remember the beauty of the country-here's a photo of a bandera flower, taken at the Hotel Raizon in Maysaya, Nicaragua, where we spent our first and last two nights. What a beautiful, complex and infuriatingly "messed up" world we live in, where folks can work really really hard and still have nothing, where a beautiful country can house so many people in poverty (Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti). We met a woman from Ecuador who now lives in Chicago and is an environmental engineer for Texaco. She was amazed and touched that Americans would come to Nicaragua to help build houses. Kind of restores your faith in all of us, doesn't it? Here's a "parting shot" taken at the airport in Managua. Emily, Alexa, Lauren and B...
Read more