Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Moving Into Week 3


All is well as we have begun week three of construction. All of the bottom floor walls and supports are now complete and we have begun the prep work for building the floor portion of the second level. Here we will build in metal beams as the initial support. We will place metal sheeting on top of the beams and then add in re-bar and 2.5 inches of concrete. All of this will take the balance of this week and part of next week. Our plan is to begin the floor pour on Friday. Mixing and hauling the concrete in buckets will take a total of 10 people working from 7 am to 4 pm. For those of you interested, the total cost of the 10 workers labor will be about $100. (minimum wage for a day is $3.50 so we are paying very well compared to many other places).

We have a target of finishing all of the major work three weeks from today. From there we will be doing detail work for a week or so and then we can dedicate this work to the community and to our amazing God.

Be a blessing to somebody today.

Marc

Friday, April 25, 2008

Finally - Pictures







I finally had the courage to fire up my laptop and the rain didn't kill it! The last time I had rain in my computer it was out of comission for about 4 months. I left it to dry out for 10 days this time and all is well. Anyway, we continue to make great progress. We plan to finish the bottom floor walls by noon on Saturday. As you can see in the photos, construction here is quite different than in the states. Here we build the outside of the building and take care of the floors later. I believe that this must have started so that people could live in a place with a roof over their heads while they continued to work on the inside of their homes.



Here are the pics - or at least you can see them above.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc



Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Great Days and Work

We have now completed the second day of our second week of work. Already we know that we have an amazing team of workers. The team that really just appeared from the neighborhood is a non stop happy group of workers. Our youngest worker is Jorge - about 15. Today I saw Jorge carrying two buckets of concrete at once - each weighing about 90 pounds and Jorge only weighs about 100 pounds. This was at the end of the day when we had already moved 500 blocks that weigh about 20 pounds each.
The next amazing worker is Edison - about 16 years old. Edison is also our night watch man - he sleeps inside the church building where we store our tools. Edison can move more sand and gravel with a shovel - faster than enyone that I have ever seen.
Next is Omar - about 17 years old. Omar is so consistent and he never seems to want to take a break. Omar starts and finishes every day with a smile and a thank you for the job. I have known Omar for about 4 years and he has helped us build more than 50 houses in his community. He is a new Christian and a new dad. He is working to take care of his family.
Henry is like a cartoon character - The Tasmanian Devil - only in a good way. He mostly works barefooted and runs everywhere. He always smiles and never stops working.
Our oldest worker is Gonzolov- likely in his 50's. The other guys on the team really respect the work and knowledge of Gonzolo so much that they call him "Teacher". We are blessed to have this man on our crew. I found out today that the house where Gonzolo lives isn't his. He doesn't have a house so he is renting space from another family. He has a piece of land so, when we are finished with this project, we are going to try to raise enough money to get Gonzolo his own house.
Updating our progress - at 10:20 this morning we laid the first block. By the end of the day one wall was just about to the first floor roof - and another was about 4 foot tall. We expect to have the first floor walls finished by next Monday. It will likely take the balance of next week to pour the floor for the second story. Progress is still ahead of schedule and we are targeting a completion before the end of May.
Thanks to everyone that is supporting this project. It is really going to change lives. As a matter of fact, today I met a person that is so excited about this work that she is going to send teachers to the center to teach women to make floral arrangements, straw dolls, and pinatas. All of these will be things that they can use to help their families to eat and survive.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Construction Day 3

The past two days have worked as well as they possibly could. Today in particular had the potential to have been a tough day to work. The food and fuel inflation here has really hurt a lot of people so there was a national strike today - we left our house shortly after 6 hoping to avoid the mess and we were able to get to the work site before the roads were closed.
As of this evening, we have completed the footer digging, we have built the rebar towers and put 4 of the 8 in place, we have started pouring corner support concrete. It looks like we will complete the pouring of all footers by sometime on Saturday and this will put us about a week ahead of the original plan. All of this is possible because we have some incredible workers - all of them from the community where we are working. Everyone of our workers is not afraid to work hard and the work associated with building in Honduras is very hard work. Everything that we do is manual. all of our digging and rock breaking is done with picks, shovels, and bars. All of the rebar is cut with hacksaws and pieced together by hand. We don't have any power tools or nail guns. Hard work is the answer to getting this job done.
The community and the church is very excited about what we are working toward. I can't wait to see the faces as this building begins to take shape. That will start happening next week as we plan to start laying block on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I promise pictures over the weekend. I am going to try my laptop on Sunday and hopefully it will be dried out from the rain and will work again.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc Tindall

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Construction Day 1

April 15th began in the same way most April 15th's have begun for the past several years. My wife and I were in a scramble to get everything done and in for our taxes. This year however was a little different as we are in Honduras so we had no way to get an April 15th postmark. Technology is good here so we were able to scan our stuff and get it to the right place on time.
Once taxes were done we were able to head out to DAY 1 of the Oriente project. Our plan was to get the site plotted out and hopefully begin some of the footer work. Our day however ended much better than we could have imagined. We were able to get on site by a little after 9 and the initial work went much faster than we had anticipated. By the end of today we - along with our crew of about 5 neighborhood men and a couple of men here from Indiana - were able to dig about 75% of the footers. We are digging footers that are about 2 foot wide and 40 inches deep. There is a lot of rock but, it is fairly soft and we are able to utilize the pick axes to move right through it.
Today we are about 2 to 3 days ahead of our original projections. We have already ordered rock (for the footer fill) sand, and gravel so that we can be prepared to start the concrete work no later than Thursday of this week. Additionally, today we were able to visit the block plant that is close to the neighborhood. It really looks good that we will be laying block early next week - possibly as soon as Tuesday.
The whole neighborhood is really excited about what is happening. Lots of questions about the building and the project. This is exciting.
Before I close out, I wanted to let you know of a potential plan for the project that will help us conserve water. It looks like we will be working toward funneling the grey water from the showers into a storage tank so that we can re-use it in the toilets. The incremental work should fit in the original budget and the recycle of shower water will save tons of valuable water. I will keep you posted on this idea.
Well, I hope to post some pictures within a day or two. The computer that I am using isn't quite as easy to use as my laptop. Currently my laptop is in the closet drying out - my roof leaked and my laptop was in the drip zone. Hopefully it will work when I turn it on - 5 more days should do it! (I hope)
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc