Day 2: I pushed a bus!

Hi everyone, this is my first blog attempt ever so be kind :) Today was the second day of building and it was much less intense than the first. Yesterday was a lot of digging and cement mixing but today was more about laying down the rebar and setting up the frame of the house. I have never done anything like this before so it's a pretty steep learning curve helped A LOT by the amazing mason at our site not to mention my other team members (kudos guys!). But my favourite part is definitely meeting the members of the community - there is one beautiful little girl in particular who has decided that she's going to teach me Spanish if it kills her. And it might. But my vocabulary has tripled in the last two days so she's doing a pretty good job! She took us on a tour of the area, brought us some sugar cane and also introduced us to her family who taught us to make tortillas. I have never felt so welcome before. The rest of her entourage is pretty good too - all young children with huge eyes who are so eager to talk to you (even though it's pretty clear you're just doing a lot of smiling and nodding) and hand you anything that you need (you would be surprised how much information you can communicate with the words "mas, menos, poquita and otra (sp?)).

I bet by now you're wondering - where does the bus come in??! At the end of the day our bus pulled up but we weren't quite done so we asked him to wait. And he very kindly did. But then by the time we got on the bus and he tried to start it, it just kept rolling backward. So out we got and went to the back. And pushed. And pushed. And then pushed some more. For a minute I wondered how to tell my parents the story of me hitchhiking back to the hotel but the "Viper Bus" didn't let us down!! Although tomorrow we'll definitely be ready and waiting at the side of the road :)

Tomorrow we're going to a site that's been hard hit by the floods and we'll also be making our own pupusas. Yup, it'll be as fantastic as it sounds :) You too could be here!

I know that I have a few days to go but I'm pretty sure this is the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'm so happy that I'm here and with this group of people - I know it's cliche but this is definitely life changing. See you tomorrow!

Ava