Dia # 2

Before I actually write I will give you our nicknames:

Amanda is “el jefe” which means the boss.
Corey is “the lifter”
My mom, Leanna, is “the cistern digger”
Brian is “the pick axe man.”
Martha is “the tile crusher “
Kelly is “the pick axe woman”
Emily is “the shovaller”
Lorenzo [me, age 12] is “the cemente amigo”

the cemente amigo

This is my second day building and my second day failing at communicating with the Paraguayan masons. Both were hard the first day and harder the next. Working has been a really fun challenge for me so far. I really don’t like moving bricks because you see no progress for about an hour of work. The job that I most enjoy most is making and shoveling the cement for everyone to stick the bricks together. My dominating this job has not become a problem yet because no one [besides the masons] enjoys or considers them selves any good at it.

The family that we are building the house for is very poor. They have 3 kids and are amazing cooks. Juan is 9 and the oldest, Camila is 5 and the little boy is 3. Juan and Camila are very shy but today I felt that I really connected with both of them. With Juan I played soccer right before lunch. It was a beat up ball either from the trash or about 10 years old. This really showed me that there is no spare money for things like soccer balls - money is spent on food and clothes. Aside from not being able to talk a whole lot we played and had a lot of fun. For lunch the family prepared empanadas of which I ate six of (what a pig!). Even our Pick Axe Man only ate four. After lunch, before it was time to head back to the work site, I chased Camila around outside until she went into the only bedroom in the house that the family now rents. Then I snuck up on her and we had a little bit of a pillow fight with the two of us and her little brother.

Here are some of our “words of the day”. Number uno, MAS. This means more, and the whole day when the masons wanted me to do something I would do it and then ask, “mas?” Nine out of ten times the answer was “si”. And the other one was “no mas”. My friendly co-workers were laughing every time because they knew the answer was yes, or si, but I was just making sure. Word number dos, CEMENTE. The masons call cement “mezcla” or “mix”, so we decided instead to make up our own word. The family we’re building the house for thought that it was hilarious. I probably said it only ten times but they would go on and on about it, so it was one of the “words of the day”.

Probably the most important part of this whole story is me sharing my experience with you. When you look at the little town or neighborhood that we are building in, it really jumps out at you. At first you think, “wow, this is obviously a poor town - there are cows in yards, broken stuff everywhere and the houses are very small for the amount of people”. But once you really get into it, it becomes really sad and you start to think, “what if I were one of those people and I had a very small amount of money to feed my family, pay rent and buy clothes, kitchen materials etc… what would I do? How would I survive?” Because we are so used to having enough money to eat and having a little extra to spend but then you look at the other side and think, “how can people live like this?” I am so glad we are down here helping to build a house and to provide a better future for this great family.