Our first work assignment was to rebuild the top half of the
walls of a kitchen that had originally been made of rough wood that the lady of
the house found impossible to clean. We
were told that the roof and the old wooden walls would be removed before we got
there, so our team could begin right in with laying cement blocks to finish off
the walls properly. When we arrived with
tools in hand, however, the only thing that had been done in advance was the
emptying of the kitchen. We had been
warned by our missionary hosts to expect that nothing would go as planned. It's the way of the culture and we might as
well accept that which cannot be changed.
So flexibility was the key to maintaining good humor when encountering
one undesirable surprise after another, and our team members were amazingly
adaptable. For me personally, having the
house still intact was preferable because it allowed me to get pictures of the
before, during, and . . . well . . . more during. This was the duringest project I ever did
see!
Back of house BEFORE
Yard behind house
King of the rock
While the old roof was peeled back and the sheets of rusty
corrugated aluminum were lifted off by the various men in the family who were
present to contribute their time and effort to this task, we did our best to
stay out of the shower of debris raining down and sending even the chickens
scattering for shelter. Once access
had been gained (i.e., 2 or 3 sheets of aluminum roofing out of the way), some
of our own men began tugging at the wooden supports to begin demolishing the
walls themselves. A little yanking, a
little whacking with a hammer, and a whole lot of jumping out of the way and it
was down. Well, sort of. In actuality, the yanking and whacking and
jumping out of the way were interrupted several times when men appeared on the
roof with machetes and chainsaws in hand, tying up huge limbs of an overhanging
mango tree and then buzzing through them while we watched the tree fall in
large hunks onto the remaining roof.
By the time the tree felling was complete it
was already hot enough to cook an egg on one of the huge rocks jutting up in
the backyard where we were all crowded about trying not to trip over each other
or the dogs or chickens or rocks or fallen tree limbs, or get strangled on one
of the many clotheslines tied from the back of the house to an avocado tree or an
animal pen.
Avacado tree
But in spite of the crowding
and chaos, significantly complicated by the Americans speaking English and the
Dominicans speaking Spanish, neither of which could be understood by the
others, we managed to get some work done.
The old kitchen roof and wooden upper walls were torn down, the tree
limbs and smaller branches were dragged off to a corner of the backyard, and all
the old boards were relieved of their nails by the excellent teamwork of Debbie
and myself. Carpentry has never been one
of my learned skills, but I was up for pounding old nails backwards out of old
boards, then using the claw end to pull them the rest of the way out. Debbie's role was to bring the boards to me,
collect the liberated nails, and stack the finished boards neatly out of the
work zone.
Lin demonstrating her nail removal skills
Debbie sorting through termite infested boards
Brad knocking down remaining wood walls
No more wood. No more roof.
Quality control just doing their job
This guy had to give his approval as well
And so went a morning of labor. By the time we walked back to the clinic for
our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we were ready for the siesta that was
being forced on us by custom whether we wanted it or not.
