day of digging and plaster

Who knows what order these picture will show up, but you will see Michal with the tool belt we all signed and gave him at dinner. Another picture is just one example of the laughter on this trip. Patrick never disappointed with his one-liners he could throw out there. Don't fall for that sweet inocent look :)

The night time pictures are of Josh and Cory and the other one is of Laura and Michal - Michal was our local site leader. The next picture shows Cory trying to convice us that you CAN dig to the other side of the earth - the girl can throw a shovel and pick axe. There is a picture of Laura showing off the fruits of her labor after leveling the patio. Laura wasn't content doing one job, she also spent part of her time plastering. The picture on the balcony is of Cory and me. The next picture should be of Larry and his power concrete saw. Next is a picture of Larry and Karen during one of our breaks. One picture shows why I have renamed the well know Abba song in honor of Cory and Karne and have renamed it "Digging Queens". It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Lastly, I actually got Carmen to stop working long enough to get her to give me a thumbs up picture. The woman is unstoppable!!!

So, here is the story of the day. Today's duties involved more plastering and LOTS of digging. It was great doing the physical labor as I think we all needed a break from the heavy emotional day the day before. Everyone was right back to work.

The worksite supervisior must have been off his meds today because he gave Larry control of the concrete power saw - Larry was quite excited....boys and their toys! I decided I would help him by holding the concrete block down as he cut. Those of you who know I am a little prone to injury may be questioning my judgement, but I know it wouldn't be the first time you did that. After his first attempt at cutting the stone, we decided to lay the stone in the ground before Damian, our site leader, could come by to inspect his work. No harm no foul. As the day went on, Larry mastered the technique of cutting cement.

Meanwhile a group was busy preparing the dry cement which meant bring wheel barrels full of sand up the hill and back into the work site to be mixed with the bags of cements.

We had our plaster masters working away upstairs. I was only up there a brief time, but am convinced that during the upcoming winter cold season I will still be sneezing out plaster dust!! I was quite happy I had been outside playing in the dirt.

That night we went out for our group for dinner and Michal joined us which was great. We had all signed a tool belt for him and presented it to him after dinner. As you can see by the above pictures, laughter was again a big part of the evening!!

We left dinner and went out for our night cap where yes, there was A LOT more laughter involved and a few beverages. Later on we stopped into one of the other clubs

where we met a man from Turkey - we really had no idea what he was saying or talking about other that "Turkey love America. George Bush, no. Barrack, yes." There were several other hand gestures involved and just too hard to translate into this blog. I will say that the man's eyebrows could have doubled as a hair piece they were so long.

Well that's it for the day. More to follow.....