The Work Begins

We arrived at the work site bright and early Monday morning. We were lucky in that the two houses we were going to build were situated next to each other. This afforded us the opportunity to work together on both of them. Often the two houses are a little distance apart and the large group is split into two.

A little bit of a side note... There are really 4 sets of people that work on building the houses.

Group One: Bridges Employees

There are two group leaders, Carla and David who led our group and a set of masons, who supervise the construction. Carla, below left, is a Nicaraguan who has been working with Bridges for two years. She is kind and gentle person but has a dry sense of humor that can crack you up at the drop of a hat. Below in the middle is David, he is from Boston originally and has been living in Nicaragua working for Bridges for about 3.5 years. He is a good athlete and is very passionate and dedicated to the work Bridges is doing. Before this he spent four years working as a counselor for at-risk children as part of Outward Bound.

On the bottom right is a picture of the Masons Francisco, William, Emilo and Carlos. There was another mason named Neil who achieved notoriety by wearing a t-shirt with the words "stop picturing me naked." He claimed he didn't know what it said but we didn't believe him. I found all of the Bridges employees to be generous, good spirited and enormously patient. Imagine having to teach a new group the same skills week after week.

Group Two: Families that receive the houses

We worked side by side with these families all week. Below, on the left, is Pio working on digging the foundation for his house. Below right is Marti and Jon beginning to prepare the first batch of cement to pour the foundation.

Group Three: Members of the Community

Bridges requires families that have received a house and families that want to receive a house to help in the construction of houses in the community. Members of the Committee are also on the scene pitching in and helping daily. Below, on the left, are some of the women in the community filling buckets of water. Antonia, the one with her hands in the blue bucket, was quite a pistol. She was driven to accomplish her task and anyone in the way better watch out! On the bottom right in the yellow shirt is Donna Gloria. She was one of the Committee members and was another strong woman; when she spoke you listened. On the first day when I was filling in the space between blocks with concrete, Donna Gloria advised me in a rather firm manner that I needed to apply a little more force. Needless to say, I quickly adjusted my technique.

Group 4: 19 Americans from the IT Leadership Group

Below is a picture of our group after we had finished day 3.

Front Row: Sarah, Leslie, Lisa

Second Row: Pawan, Danny, Tae, Anna, Katie

Standing: Paul, Vinie, Bill, Lisa, Jon, Anne, Minnette, Jason, Roxane, Marti, Michelle

Many people have asked if you had to be in the IT field to go on the trip... The answer is no! (so you have no reason you can't go) While nearly all the people on the trip this year were people in the IT field, several were not. Jason, in the picture, was enticed on the trip by Katie after helping her fund raise for her trip last year. Tae, aka "Stick", Minette's 14 year old daughter, was also along to help. 12 women and 7 men.