Work

Every morning after breakfast, our group leaders would read off the "service opportunities" for the day. Some of us were assigned to the school or the store, but everyone else worked on the houses. We built two homes during the week but also assisted in starting to build a few more. About eight people would be assigned to each house to work on putting up the walls, sifting rocks, and applying concrete. The rest of us would get assigned to what we called "the maul haul." A pile of maul (dirt) would be at the bottom of a hill and we would form an assembly line to haul the bags of maul to the top. Even though carrying heavy bags of dirt for 8 hours sounds awful, they were actually some of my favorite days. It was a great chance to get to get to know my other team members and to build relationships. Everyday around 3:00 the kids would get out of school and stop to help us on their way home. Kids as young as 4 were helping us carry huge bags of maul up the hills. Kids in America would have thought of this was torture, while the kids there were so thrilled to be able to help us.