Day #6: The Pits or The Trenches

Well, as expected I was moved back to the playground (or as what's been commonly called "The Pits" or "The Trenches" by our team). We had two cement mixers going and we got the cap to the wall poured to the corner. Dan Hurley and I mixed the cement, we'd then get about five wheel barrows full our of each mixer, barrow it over to the wall where it would then be shovelled into buckets and lifted to the top of the wall. The two guys at the top of the wall would pour it and make sure all the air bubbles were out. We got it poured rather quickly and were able to get all the concrete equipment cleaned up and finish backfilling with rock by lunch. After lunch five of us were back into the trench to finish digging the narrower trench within the trench. It only had to go down about 4-6 inches and was 12 inches across. With the pick axes, shovels and buckets we made pretty good progress. We were about halfway to the end when Wilber pulled me off the trench team to mix more cement. We started laying the subfoundation for the first two sections in the trench. Tomorrow it sounds like it's going to be more trencing and mixing and pouring. It should move pretty quick. That's the one thing with concrete in hot sunny weather, you have to move fast or it dries before it's in place. Overall it was a great day. We got a lot done.

Dan Hurley and Gordon waiting for th concrete to mix up.

Filling up buckets to be lifted up to the cap.

Dumping the extra concrete into the trench.

Finished wall cap.  No it's not pretty, but that's how the do it down here.

Tomorrow we'll probably be able to take the forms off of the wall cap sections we poured today. I'll be sure to get pictures of that.

For lunch tomorrow we're going to have Dr. Hedstrom, an ecobiologist and professor whose focus is on eco-theology, come in to talk with us. It should be very interesting.

Well that's all that happened today. It's shorter, but today flew by. Tomorrow is the one week mark. Then Wednesday we're going to southern San Jose to feed some children at an orphanage.