500 bags of cement!

(The Clinic, where the people are standing above, we poured concrete)

(A view of the mixing... see the sand pile?)

(The finished roof... at 4 am)

(A view from Agua Azul, where I went on Saturday)


Well, 500 bags of cement later and a bit of pain, the roof of the clinic is 70% of the way poured.

Friday was a crazy day. This is how my day went.
6:10 I woke up
6:30 Breakfast
7:00 until 12:00 noon Tied rebar on the roof at the worksite
12:00 Lunch
12:30 until 4:00 Nap and general rest
4:00 I tied more rebar on the worksite
6:30 Dinner
7:00 Start pouring concrete. I shoveled concrete into the buckets.
9:00 Short break for dinner, continue working
11:00 pm Almost all the Americans and some Mexicans left
1:00 am Break for meal, continue working. I shoveled sand and carried water.
4:00 am The mixers were turned off and the section of the roof we were pouring was finally done!
5:00 am I laid down in my bed... finally
6:30 am Woke up and got ready to leave for the day and night

So basically, I worked for maybe fifteen hours and slept for two. It was GREAT! I loved it. There were only four Americans that stayed the whole time, and it was a really cool experience. It was cool to be part of something so big and important for Ocosingo. And... after all the work I've done the past 5 or 6 weeks on the clinic, I could not pass up this big event.

We are planning to pour the rest of the roof this week, but I think we poured about 25 tons of concrete which is about 500 (100 lbs) bags of cement mix so far. There were probably about 80 people working on the clinic at the busiest point in the evening, but yet there always seemed to be work. I was amazed at the guys who carried buckets of concrete on their shoulders up and down the ramp to the roof.

Saturday, we headed to Agua Azul and Palenque on our way to Villahermosa, where the group flew out of today. The new group is here and tomorrow morning its back to working. Grace and Peace... and Praise God for the roof.