Thursday

After breakfast and getting ready this morning, the moms and I stayed behind to organize all of the supplies we brought down for the orphanage! We have been giving them some of the stuff each day, but we plan to give them the majority of it whenever we're able to get their van to bring all of the bags to them so that we don't have to carry them up the hill!

Everyone else went up to the orphanage to start working on the projects for the day. It was rainy when we woke up, but luckily it stopped when we were ready to work. It has rained every day that we've been down here so far. It's their rainy season though, so I guess that is expected! It is very wet here in general actually.

For the drainage project, they have located the flow of water they were looking for!! They have a plan of how they're going to fix the problem, but it means we will probably have to hand-dig a 75 foot trench in order to put in the new pipe! We plan to do that tomorrow morning.

We also finished the concrete slab today!! The mixing process is definitely one thing that is a lot different than in the US. We had to shovel the mixture back and forth, add water to it, and shovel some more before it was ready. Whereas in America, a cement truck does all of that for you :) Then we had to take several wheelbarrows full of the mixture over to the area where we laid the concrete... And the filled-up wheelbarrows each probably weighed 200 pounds! It turned out really nice though in the end! The 7 of us seniors decided to put our handprints into the wet cement after all of the work we put into it.

Inside the orphanage, some of the moms helped out with the usual cleaning duties. There are almost always dishes to be done at the orphanage; unfortunately this is also a longgg process! There of course no dishwashers, so they are done by hand. In order to get hot water, it has to be boiled. And of course boiling water takes twice as long as it does at home :) And then the water was turned off the majority of the day in the house, which makes it hard to get anything done!

For lunch we made macaroni and cheese; when two of the volunteers here found out we were eating it, they got super excited because they hasn't had it in so long. The macaroni here just doesn't compare to mac n'cheese back home. So we gave them a little bit of ours, which  seemed to make their day! :)

After lunch and finishing up the concrete, we went inside to help the kids with their homework. As usual, this was a pretty long process. It is definitely interesting to see how different some of their schoolwork is. We all learn the same basic concepts, but how they are taught them seems to be different sometimes.

After homework, we took a few of the boys to play soccer. A few of the local kids joined in to play with us. They all seemed to really enjoy it and were full of energy the entire time!

Finally we came back for dinner. After dinner the hotel owner showed us how to make a little dish that is basically a smashed plantain that you fry a few times. It tasted sort  of like a potato or something.

My dad decided to run to the grocery store to buy paper towels and other things, but the cost of paper towels here is outrageous. For a package of 2, they were $6!! They claim they are reusable, but they are pretty normal-looking to me. Other than that, we all spent time  relaxing.

Tomorrow we will work on the trenches and help out in the orphanage. In the afternoon we plan to to swimming with the kids! Hopefully the weather holds up!

-Kaitlyn

P.s. I'm sooo sorry I didn't post this last night!! I fell asleep in the middle of doing it! I will try to be better about it!