Day #2...you may as well call me Bobcat!

Hola!  Today it was HOT.  We had a pretty good day working on the playground.  We pobably won't see anywhere close to the completion of the playground.  Hopefully we'll get closer to seeing more of the wall done.  Today, my duties included picking up rock buckets, carrying rock buckets, lifting rock buckets, then carrying empty rock buckets back to get filled.  We made it almost to the end of the wall that's up.  We were back filling the wall with rock and laying a drainage pipe at the base.  We should be to the end tomorrow.  Then Monday we'll probably pour the top of the wall.

Here are some pics of our days events.

This is the playground.  As you can see we're weeks from any sort of slide or swings going up.  We won't see any fun on this playground...but that's not why we're here.  The green building at the top of the hill is the school that half the team is working on various painting projects.

The wall that we lift the bucket up to.

Ron working on tying the rerod together so we can lift it up to the top of the wall.

Dennis and Clyde "inspecting" the work.  You can see our buckets on the left that we filled and carried.

The walk to the lift area.  Walked it hundreds of times today.

Our valiant rock throwers.  They'd take the full buckets and spread the rock behind the wall.  We did 8" below the pipe, layed the pipe, then another 4" above.

This is the view from the pool.  The buildings you see are little luncheon areas that have charcoal grates for cooking.  I'll get a picture of the pool tomorrow.  It just so happened there were some not-so-modestly dressed ladies tanning on the hill behind me here...so I couldn't very well turn around and take a pic.

Overall it's been an eye opening experience.  I was talking with another guy on the trip and we were talking about our hometowns and th hispanic populations therein.  We both noticed (me more than him since he speaks some spanish) that when we were in our home towns, there are some first generation spanish speaking people that go into stores, don't speak a word, pay and leave.  They don't speak any english.  I always thought they just kept to themselves.  But today I went into a store to buy something to drink, the lady at the till knew I didn't speak spanish, was gracious and typed on a calculator what I owed.  It was 650 calones.  I paid with a large enough bill, she gave me my change, and I was off.  I didn't say a word the whole time I was there.  It wasn't that I didn't want to talk with them.  I do know a minimal amount of spanish.  But it was more of an intimidation factor. 

What really got me thinking was the minority representation in my hometown vs the "They live in America, they should speak english" camp.  I know we try and accomodate non-english speaking people in Worthington.  But I wonder how much we're missing out on because there's this huge language gap.  It's not that they want to keep to themselves, they want to interact and have conversations.  But they can't, just like I can't down here.  I wonder if more people in Worthington learned spanish, would there still be the cultural barriers wthin our community?  Would we be able to better approach the road blocks we encounter?  Would we be better able to unite as a city, county, state, and country if we bridged th language gap?

Being on the other side of the coin is an eye opening experience...but it's been good.

More tomorrow.

-Kyle

I'm in Costa Rica!

Well, we made it to Costa Rica today about 3pm.  The long flight from Charlotte to San Jose wasn't too bad.  The landing at Charlotte was pretty exciting though.  35-45 mph winds that were throwing us around on our approach.  The plane would dip enough to throw your stomach into your throat and force you to impulsively reach for the non-existent "Oh Crap!" bar.  After about the third time you realize that other people have seen you reach for this mystery bar and know that you're just a little scared as you scream towards the runway.  The closer you get to the pavement, the more you're convinced that the pilot has forgotten to put the landing gear down and you're going to end up a sparking ball of flame that comes to a stop in exactly the same spot that the emergency vehicles are going to end up at....BUT then in the end you wait 20 minutes to exit the plane and board the next...unharmed in the successful landing.

Here are some pictures of our arrival in San Jose and the houses we're staying at for the next two weeks.  I'll post more later. 

 

Waiting for our bus outside the San Jose airport.

  

  

My bunk...it really felt like camp all over again. 

  

This is our eating/devo area...outside...ROXORS. 

I'm going to be working on the playground for the next two weeks.  It's what I wanted to do.  I DIDN'T want to be stuck painting.  I know "Everything for the glory of God."  But I don't think Paul ever had to wash out paint brushes in the name of Christ...and therefore probably doesn't understand how easily it is to HATE painting.

There'll be more tomorrow or the next day...probably more pictures too!

-Kyle

Fatherhood...and the next two weeks.

"I have never seen two fathers that are sooo good with their babies as you two."  This was said to me and a close friend today.  It came from a grandmother from my church.  Now it was a really nice thing to hear, and it was a compliment very well received.  But as I was driving home from church today, I started thinking about this comment.  Not so much that I deserved this compliment, or that it made me proud to be a father.  But rather that here is a lady that has seen her fair share of fathers in her lifetime.  And she has pegged my close friend and I as two of the best dads she's seen (she said this in front of her husband too!).  What really struck me is what this really says about our society.

Now I know that this is one grandmother's opinion, but why isn't it common place for fathers to be fully active and involved with their infants?  Why is it so strange to see fathers coddling, feeding (obviously not breastfeeding), and playing with their infants?  Is it some sort of stigma that keeps fathers from engaging their newborns?  Is there some sort of natural instinct that keeps fathers at bay until the little girls can play dress up, or the little boys can throw a pigskin?  Is it that fathers are more than likely afraid of "breaking" their newborns?

I honestly don't know what it is.  I don't know what I'm doing different.  I don't know if I'm doing anything different at all.  I'm just fathering the way I feel I should father.  We've seen many different studies that show the importance of a father in the development of a child.  We've seen studies that show emotional and psychological instability in people (not all) without any sort of present father.

So my question is, how do we change this trend?  How do we, as men, change the stereotype of the absent, sports addicted, beer drinking simpleton as a father?  Like in most things, the only way we can even start to change is to change ourselves first.  I'm going to continue to be a different kind of father.  I'm not going to be the Ray Romano or the Jim Belushi. I'm not going to be the father that works 80 hours a week to provide things to my kids.  I refuse to be.  Sure I like football and golf, and I love my job.  But that doesn't give me an excuse to be an absent father.  Once you become a father, you no longer are entitled to time away from your kids.  Sure your gracious wife may give you permission to take a fishing trip with the guys (and you may give her time to go away with the gals).  But once you decide to have a baby (and even though it wasn't a preferred choice, once you have unprotected sex, you're deciding on having a baby), you are a father, a daddy, a man among men.  So let's strap up the steel toes, tighten the belt and start acting like one.

My 2¢.
-Kyle

PS- This week is a big week for me.  First I'm going to Costa Rica on a mission trip on Wednesday.  I will try and post some things about the trip while I'm down there.  I'm hoping to bring my old digital camera to take some pics of the work we're doing and the people we're working with.

Also this week I start my 40 days sans internet.  Sure I'm going to be posting blogs about my trip, but that along with emailing my wife are the only things I'm going to be using the internet for.  You can see my blog on my fast here. 

So now I will be on my way, ¡Hasta luego!