I´m going to post my photos only on facebook, here is a link for you to see, and i´ll caption them better there.

 

Today was our first day working at the orphanage. Lyndon, Clayton and I rotated through shovelling backfill into a wheelbarrow (one long shovel, one short shovel), and tying rebar. The ladies painted the office building at the entrance a nice minty green. After one ten minute stint with the short-handled shovel, I coulldn´t do any more shoveling, it just about wrecked my back. So i helped with the high painting parts.

 

It was pretty hot this morning, the occasional breeze helped but it was still pretty humid. The girls were hanging around us at times, some of them helped to shovel and they all wanted to paint (but werent allowed to). We wore name tags (both the team and the girls) and that was very helpful.

 

We had lunch with the girls and they are starting to warm up to us. We sorted all the stuff we brought to give away this afternoon - the morning heat and work took quite a bit out of me, even with a 20 minute nap I felt pretty bushed for an hour. Darlene said that I´d feel better if I got up and did something, and sure enough, she was right. I did a bunch more tying rebar and some painting, then after our lemonade, we went to visit Christina and Chepe and Marisol in the bario. It was nice to see them again and fun to play with Chepe. I got Christina to smile with her dimples for a picture too.

 

We are a pretty tired bunch tonight. Tomorrow we are painting in the morning, then off to Masaya in the afternoon, to the market there and the volcano. What kind of shenanigans will we get into with Clayton and Judy along? (And five of the girls from the orphanage.)

 

I´m missing everyone back home, but I´m not missing the weather! Hahaha

 

Mike