Day 4

First of all, I should start off by saying this: I believe that I failed to mention a key point in my story that really impacts my version of what went on in Jamaica two weeks ago. As I mentioned yesterday, I really felt like God was trying to stretch me physically on this trip. The guys, however, apparently had a different view of me. They nicknamed me "diva", or "D". From day one. I'm not quite sure where they got that impression: it could have had something to do with how I present myself at church, or that I sing, or... maybe it came from me painting my toenails in the airport as we were waiting for our flight to leave? Well, either way, they had it set in thier minds that I was a "diva", and I even aquired the nickname "Heidi", as in, "Come on, Heidi!" as I was chipping tile off the wall on Monday. If you're confused, it's okay. I was too. But either way, I spent the rest of the week, proving myself to be neither a "diva" OR a "Heidi" (whatever that means!).

So anyway, day two required a bit more physical effort than day one did: and not because we did anything more physically taxing, rather, I think that I was so excited to dig into all the work the day before that I kind of over-did it, so I was dragging quite a bit for day two of work. The other thing I failed to mention about this experience was the stairs. The stairs. Oh the staaaaiiiirs!!! Well okay. Let me give you a visual first. These are the dorms where the kids live....

Well... they're where the older girls live. The green house right behind that is where the toddlers and infants stay, and the boys are on the very west end of the compound which you'll see at a later date. So, to get from the lodge to the dorms, you have to climb down a couple of flights of stairs...

... and that's not even all of them. That's just to get from the lodge to the dorms. To get from the dorms to where we worked for the majority of the week, was another... three flights or so? I was so excited to be there and be working, and seeing the kids and everything on Monday, that I probably ran up and down the 150-some stairs about fifteen+ times. So as you can imagine, I was drained on Tuesday. It wasn't pretty.

This is the missionaries' house (aka the directors of the orphanage), which is another flight of stairs down from the dorms. The beautiful wooden balconies were constructed last year by our church's team which were just beautifully done. The actually view from the balconies are just breathtaking. You can see the whole mountain range, all of Kingston, and the ocean. It's just gorgeous!

Okay well, so the work (which is the whole reason we were there), went really well. My main project for the day was to help Dean (pictured here) make a door for the new coffee storage facility. It had to be made out of Maho (sp?) wood, it had to be two inches thick, and very sturdy. Well, the catch was that we had to take raw wood and make the pieces into the planks that you see us working with there. So, we had to run them though the table saw to get straight edges, and then run them through the planer over, and over, and over again, until they were smooth on both sides. Then, they were suitable for use. It literally took all day just to get them to this point, at which time, we drilled holes, pounded in some dowels (sp? - I'm obviously not a carpenter seeing as I can't spell any of the technical words associated with the work), glued them together, and clamped it together piece by piece and allowed them to dry. I was so excited to be a part of this process, because I learned so many new things that day!

A few of the other guys spent the day forming the stairs from the director's house down to the new coffee facility, and pouring concrete. Here's another one for you: up there in "mountain-ville", they don't have concrete trucks, so what they do is they mix stone, sand, and concrete mix with water in a pile in the middle of the dirt road on the compound, and tranfer it down the side of the mountain in buckets as you see the guys doing here. Believe it or not, my goofy self wanted to partake in this tedious process, but didn't have a chance to on this particular day. It would be days five and six that I would torture myself by becomming one of the guys and hauling concrete with them.

These are the stairs that they worked on. This was the very preliminary stage of the stairs. By the time we left, they were close to completion: which is hard to believe, seeing as there were really only 3 guys from our team working on them at all times, 5 to 6 of us when they needed extra help, and only four days of actual work. Of course we had the local grounds-keepers and construction guys helping, but I'm still amazed at how much got done while we were there!

So on this day, the clouds rolled in rather unexpectedly mid-day, and the rain came pouring down unlike anything I had ever seen! I don't know if it was because we were in the middle of the clouds or what, but the raindrops were absolutely gi-normous!!

We had our first day of VBS with the kids that day, but I missed the majority of it, because I was busy helping get all the coffee back in the bags as the rain came pouring down: and I was in such a desperate need of a shower, that I chose water and cleanliness over time with the kids (I know: bad missionary girl!). But the other girls picked up the slack and helped the kids make foam crosses with glitter paint and words like faith, and believe: so cute! Me and my clean self came in on the very tail end of things, and it was a complete madhouse in there: but it seemed like the kids had a great time, and they just loved to be able to spend time with us.

The rest of the evening played out like every other night there. We enjoyed dinner together, and settled in for yet another night of games. I captured a few amazing sunsets, one of which I thought I'd share with you today...

My pastor and his wife. Awwwwwwwww! I love this picture. The sunsets there are awesome and can never be done justice on film. But I really liked this one. Anyway.. games, laughs, and lots of fun consumed our evening once again, and shortly thereafter it was off to bed to prepare for yet again another day of hard, but very rewarding work.