Work begins....

Hello.

We had our first day at work on the bulding site yesterday. We are working in the house of an elderly man in the Church which is where the kids club of about 80 kids meet every week. The outside bit of it had a very shaky roof on it and a dirt floor. We started digging the floor yesterday to get it ready for the concrete. Its quite difficult getting the levels right, especially as it has to have a slant on it because at the moment all the water from next door leaks through the walls and floods the place...

It is amazingly hard work. We have to pickaxe the floor and shovel the dirt into wheelbarrows and then wheel the wheelbarrows outside, up a relatively steep hill for about 20 meters (with cobbled stones which makes it much harder) and then onto the site next door (which was the place the church was trying to buy to make the brand new kids club...) The thing is, to get it onto that site you have to push the barrows up a very steep hill (only about 5 meters) which really took it out of us. Two of the guys (Guy and Matt) were on domestic yesterday so weren´t at the building site, so Luke and I were the only guys there, and try as hard as they could, the girls couldn´t manage to get the barrows onto the site next door so Luke and I had to do them all...

After lunch, loads of the local kids turned up which was amazing. They were so happy to see us and were so full of energy it was quite hard keeping up with them.. They came along and started wielding the pickaxes a bit too crazilly so we had to take them off them and load them up with shoivels instead. They were like little machines - they shoveled the dirt into the barrows and then attempted to get them up the hill (usually stopping half way for me and luke to do the rest) and then we would give them rides down the hill in the barrows... It was so much fun, really enjoyed it all.

By the time we had finished I was basically a walking sweat ball and was so looking forward to a shower but when we got home, the water wasn´t on, so I had to fill up a bucket at one of the tanks (they store water when it is on because it often isnt) and have a cold shower with a bucket and a cup. It was heaven. Felt so good after it but now i have slightly aching muscles. Fortunately i was on domestic today so i had a nice rest.

We work on the building site on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Tuesdays we work at a school in the morning, teaching them bits and pieces (not really sure what because i missed it today as i was on domestic) and Wednesdays we work at the school in the morning and then at the kids club in the afternoon, which is when all the kids meet.

Went to the Church on Sunday which was a bit wierd cos it was all in Spanish so didnt understand the sermon abart from bits and pieces. We could work out what the songs were saying but it was just great fun - they get really into it with horrendously out of time clapping but its all good...

Honduras is amazing, its lovely and hot but gets cool at night so its not hard to sleep. We havn´t had any trouble with anyone and havn´t even seen any gangs yet which is good. Everyone we are working/staying with are really nice and welcoming. There is one lady called Lucy who is the most amzing cook. She made us cinnamon buns for our first breakfast which were amazing, and she cooked us an amzing dinner one night and then on saturday we had the most amazing brownies that she cooked. Unfortunately i think that was only because we had just arrived. Now we are cooking for ourselves which is still good, but not as nice as Lucy´s cooking!!! We are eating lots of rice, pasta and potatoes with basic additions because they are cheap and we are on a very tight budget... I still manage to eat lots though which ios very nice!

Team is getting on reallywell as well which is great - really looking forward to the next few months!

Cant really think of anything else to say so will end it there and will hopefully update you again soon with more news!!

Joel