Days 2 and 3

Hi family, friends, and members of FCCB,

Well, the last two days have been very full! So full we've barely had time to post anything on our blog! Sorry if you've been worried, but please be assured that we are all safe and doing fine. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to the past two days.

We have done A LOT of manual labor in the past two days. We've been working at the same site where we were on Monday, where our task has been to move fill dirt into the foundation of the house and pour a cement floor. The system that Esperanza uses to move dirt requires team work and everyone participating. At the beginning of each day, a large dump truck has driven by and dumped a huge mountain of dirt right in front of the house. Our task has been to move that dirt into the foundation of the house by filling buckets half full and passing them down a line of people. The last person in the line dumps the dirt where it needs to be and a second ling of people returns the bucket to those shoveling. It feels so good when we get a rhythm going and we see the dirt mounds shrinking. We also got to pour the floor, and our next task will be to start on the walls. It's so cool to see all the progress we've made. Singing loudly has made our work seem less intense.

We have had a lot of fun getting to know the community members as well. There are some adorable kids in the community that like to have water fights with us when it gets too hot out, and some of the ladies in the community have been teaching us some phrases in Spanish. It's been awesome to work in the same place all week so we've had a chance to get to know them!

Yesterday after work we went to a girls' orphanage which is run by nuns in the area. When we got there, a lady named Marta gave us a tour. When she finished that she took us our back and told us that the girls would love to challenge us to a game of soccer. So we ended up playing soccer with them for over an hour! We had such a good time and the girls just lit up. There was one girl named Perla who fell in love with Sharry and wrote her name on her hand. It was so cute. One thing interesting about the orphanage was that most of the girls have one parent or a relative living, but their families are too poor to support them, so they stay at the orphanage. There are usually 60 girls living there, but when we visited there were only 15 because the others were "on vacation" visiting their parents.

We had a calm evening tonight and didn't go anywhere, which was nice because we were tired from all of the work and field trips we've done so far. Instead, we headed down to an ice cream shop that's pretty close to where we're staying and got ice cream and soda and walked around a bit. When we got back from ice cream, we discovered that the power was out in the whole city. Fortunately our place has a gas stove and we were able to prepare dinner. The house next door to us got their power back a few hours before us, but at 9 pm, it was super dark here and we had no lights. The neighbor came over and asked if we would like to borrow a lamp so we could see. She then proceeded to hook up an extra long extension cord from her house down to our kitchen. It helped so much because we were trying to wash dishes in the dark, which was becoming frustrating because it was so hot and dark. When we got the lamp, it just made us so happy. The way the Mexican community comes together for one another has been impressive to us, and that lady lending us the lamp was just one of the many ways we've seen hospitality on our trip.

Anyway lovely people, it's bed time. Hope you are doing well and we look forward to sharing more about our experiences when we return.

Lots of love,
Angela