We saw a sunny day coming, and greeted it with a breakfast of waffles; but the whole thing was dimmed by the need to say goodbye to team members who were with us for only the first week: Joe and Julie, Lee and Tony, and Tove, Sam, and Jenae. We will miss enormously their company and contributions to fun ... and their huge amounts of work.
We were off on the 25 minute bus trip to the Children's Home by 7:50am, cheered to have an extra helper with us for the day, Mike Keyse. Mike, a missionary in Costa Rica, became known to the team last year and has participated with us both years.
The two big jobs before us on the sunny and somewhat windy day were (1) digging and enlarging foundation ditches for the second main dwelling structure, and (2) building re-rod frames for the soon-to-be-poured (gulp) concrete foundations. There was some first-day-getting-organized business, but soon we were all hard at it, adjusting to how our Tico leaders wanted things done, as well as our own job leaders, Will and Jim. A couple of team members spent the morning helping out at the Children's Home, playing with and entertaining the 11-month old twins and three preschool girls.
It was a treat to greet our friend Carmen, who was again cooking for us and taking great care of us. We had our mid-morning "fruit break" of course, and at noon, a splendid lunch of chicken, rice, and salad, followed by some rest.
The ditch business was very heavy work. Indeed we continued in the afternoon to just 3 pm, when the ditch was declared complete, and the team exhausted. We headed back to the dorm a little early for much need showers and rest. Our friend Julie Chamberlain, Director of the Spanish Language Institute, joined us for dinner and conversation this evening and the team went to bed early, dreaming of the concrete to be mixed and poured tomorrow.
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