GU ABST El Salvador

Monday: Today many of us began our day at 6:30 AM. The plan for the day was to go to Don Israel's home village. There we would help with the construction of an additional building to the existing El Salvadoran school complex. Before we left, we ate breakfast and made ourselves lunch which consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and some crackers. At 7:30 AM, we got in the microbus and made our one hour journey to the village.

After about an hour of riding through some of El Salvador's beautiful scenery, we arrived at the school complex. We also took a quick stop at a brick making center. The group grabbed two wheelbarrows, a couple of shovels, and some buckets, to go dig up some dirt. We walking a couple of minutes to a row of village homes. We meet Nina (the Salvadoran title of respect for elder women) Consuela, who needed water for washing clothes. Instead of digging dirt, the group took about a 15 minute hike down a hill to the water well. There Molly and Nina Consuela filled our buckets (less than half way, for the students) with water. We then made our journey back to Nina Consuela's home but before we did, we took a quick stop at Don Santiago's home. It was constructed not too long ago by a group of volunteers.

The drive through El Salvador

After dropping off the water we walked back to the school complex where the truck with mortar (sand like material used to bind the brick together) had arrived. The group began the long task of unloading the truck using hand shovels. For many it was the first time in a while that they had done such labor intensive work especially in the hot Salvadoran sun. It took about half an hour to unload the truck and then the real work began.

We took several wheelbarrows of mortar to the actual construction site where it was passed through a mesh screen and mixed with water and cement to make the mix used in the construction. Others moved the wall blocks to the construction site where the volunteers and the workers laid them to begin construction of the schoolhouse. We had a great time working on their Spanish skills and learning masonry! The heat took its toll on some of the volunteers but they still worked through it to make this schoolhouse a reality.We ate lunch later in the day and continued for a couple of hours on the construction.

The school children also helped and had a great time taking pictures! I also had a chance to talk to the teachers, and I realized that they are the ones that are making a difference. At 3:00 PM the tools were cleaned up and we boarded the microbus back to San Salvador. We had a great dinner and had our reflection before going to bed for another busy day of constructing!