February 10th, 2010
It rained……and rained. The roads in the mountains were slippery masses of clay. But- Christiane and I made it up to Los Arcos for their very first day of construction, spent time at the school, met some of the local men working on the construction as well as the foreman.
The classroom is jam-packed with students
The existing school consists of one classroom for 90 or more students and one young male teacher (who seemed quite marvelous). The class was jam packed with tables and desks when we arrived and they were expecting another twenty students mid-morning. We’ll buy some school supplies for them before we leave as we had the young teacher make a list of the things he needs.
We brought packets of toothbrushes and soap to give to the men working on the construction and although their initial reaction seemed to be “what the heck is this”, a few minutes after I left them, I saw them all at the ledge where the packets were, examining them and trading colors of toothbrushes.
The World Vision folks have been absolutely fabulous- they do the organizing and the driving. Antonio and Saul are my new heroes after getting us down from the mountain. It was an incredible job and at one point they, and the workers from the school had to do some considerable figuring of how to get us down the hill without the truck sliding sideways into the ditch or off down the slope.
Be careful on the slippery roads
Me meeting the foreman
Kitchen at Los Arcos school