01.13.14
after a weekend full of rest and relaxation at an amazing hotel, today we get back to the building. this morning we all got back in the habit of waking up early, or snoozing our alarms and waking up a tad bit late. regardless, we all met for a delicious breakfast at 7. per usual, it was quite cold in tecpán in the morning, so everyone was wearing their layers. after breakfast, it was time to head to our respective worksites for our last full day of work. i always throw on some tunes to get me pumped for the workday, and so far macklemore has been my go to. at my site, we kept busy all day, becoming experts at the “fireline” formation. previously, during the first days of building we had dug up the perimeter of the house to insert the foundation. when we ran out of room, due to the limited space at the worksite, we had to place the dirt inside the soon-to-be house perimeter. today was the day for transferring that dirt to a different location using only a couple of buckets; a job cut out for what i call “the bucket brigade”. there was so much dirt that it took us almost all morning to remove it all. following that, we broke for lunch. then it was back to our “fireline” positions to move 500 blocks from the street to inside the house perimeter. finally, to finish the day off we cut out u-blocks using machetes; how cool! overall, a series of repetitive tasks that ended up saving the mason and laborers a lot of time. we finish up tomorrow with a half day of work and our goodbye ceremony, or despetida. it’s crazy to think we’ll be leaving soon; time flies! with that i say, “buenos noches everyone and see you all soon”.
-greg
ISLguatemala2014 