Ali's Tuesday

Its been another amazing day here in PR. To start off our day we had pancakes and sausage! YUM Right after breakfast we got right to work. One group finished their work on the pluming they started yesterday and yes I said finish! This was exciting to be able to see how fast the pluming was put together in just a matter of two days. Another group finished cutting re-bar off the kitchen, power tools have indeed become our new friend. The third group of us put together re-bar to create forms for columns. We had to make three forms and this project, along with the other two, completely consumed our morning.
By lunch time the majority of us had a new layer of dirt and grease and had a little bit of a red tint to us. We all enjoyed a nice break with tacos and fellowship with each other. After our break we started right back up on our jobs. Those who were putting the pluming together we finally able to cover the pipes and hang string to be a guider to level the floor that will soon be put in. The rest of us finished making forms for the columns and then weeded an area behind the workshop. Weeding was quite the adventure and some of us even got to use a machete to cut away the weed. (No one was hurt in the process other than a few new blisters.)
As we were finishing weeding for the day, the other half of our group was able to pour cement in the holes to hold up the form columns. It was so exciting to see how quickly we were able to finish the pluming and pour cement for to hold the soon to be columns. We are now one step closer to putting in the new floor. After all this work we were able to cool down and clean off with a swim in the ocean! It was a great way to end a hard day of work and to clean off all our dirt. The water also felt good on all the new sun burns.After we were all cleaned up and full of rice, beans, and veggies, we took a trip to Ponce. It was a short drive and another great experience of Puerto Rico driving. In Ponce we all treated ourselves to Kings ice cream, amazing stuff, and spent some time by the talking and buying/looking/breaking souvenirs. Yes, I did breaking! While looking around in the store a shot glass happened to be dropped and shattered. It did have to be payed for, but on the good side there was a cover on the glass so the money was not completely spent on broken glass. I'm not going to name names, but I'm sure you will all hear about it when we return.
God has truly been working in our lives through this week. We made a lot of progress on our work as well as our tans or burns today and we continue to learn more and more about each other as the week progresses. Keep praying for our team and our work here in PR!
Blessings from the beautiful sunny PR,

Ali James