We're Back and Building

We’ve made it back to Honduras after 2 1/2 months on the road. So far we’ve unpacked, organized, cleaned, and caught up with friends and students from the school (who all ask why we won’t teach this year). We still need to wash every dish in our kitchen, cleaning up all the dust that’s settled while we were away. It feels like home here again, now that we’re settled in a bit. Monday, March 3rd, is the big start date for the first house. Tomorrow (Saturday) we’ll head to town to buy some lumber and nails. We’ll use them to mark out the exact house dimensions at the level the concrete floor will be poured. Then we start digging for the foundation. The building team at this point consists of Jason, a skilled Honduran, an even more skilled one to look over our shoulders occasionally, and maybe one or two other Honduran helpers. Jason and myself (Sarah), fall into the unskilled category at this point, but we’ll be learning. I’m not sure how much I am wanted for the construction at this point — we’ll see how tough I can be. To Hondurans the idea of a woman helping is pretty ridiculous, but the plan is that I’ll be at the property three days a week to help with the building and starting our garden. The house we’re building will be long and skinny, with big windows, and porches. It was designed to keep us cool here in the tropics without the aid of the air conditioner. The fact our house will have a refrigerator, stove, and (gasp) a wash machine is enough to set us apart from our neighbors, not to mention the truck and two computers. What are the true necessities of life anyways? Many of our neighbors get along just fine without any of those things. Well, we’re off to build! Wish us luck!