Quebrada Grande, Day 2, February 6, 2015

It's 4 a.m., not a spit of light, yet a scrawny cockerel with a sore throat squawking cock-a-doodle-doo! By 4:30 the whole town comes alive with the first sugar cane trucks rumbling slowly up the hill past my window - three massive dumpsters joined together behind the truck forming a "sugar train". Our hotel is on the sugar cane route. Oh boy! And somewhere there is a donkey bray, hee-haw! 

Sugar "train"

More sugar "train"

5 a.m. and up and at em! Some other observations of the hotel - you can hear your neighbor coughing and other human noises, we share music and conversation without leaving our rooms. Too much information - say no more. Weather is in the high 70s and promising to push upwards. The leaky shower pipe is turned on by a simple lever at the pipe. Ohhh, it's cold water only. What a treat ! Nineth has warned us not to go bare foot in the bathroom area as fungal infection lurks in the floor. 

Breakfast is plantains, beans, egg, ham  and soft tortilla.

Education classes will be Friday, Saturday, and Monday,  9 a.m. - 11 a.m. for the trainers. We explain that introductions are important and that they will all need to practice speaking to others to continue the education work. Lessons are in three parts, spiritually, craft, science experiment. We begin with the creation story, water sent to us to drink and save our soul. Leigh is giving the lesson and Nineth is translating. 
Linking the creation story to the present day time includes a quick pollution update. We ask why do we have germs that you cannot see without a microscope, are they everywhere? Passing around the spy glass we ask can we see germs on our hands, can we smell them. Germs can be on everything, especially they can be hidden in the water.

During the repeat of first half lesson the students tittle tattle on the Pastor as to who gets the use of this water system. This concerns us and we share this with the team at our evening debrief.

At the water building the board has been installed and the pump is fixed to the board. George and Pastor Enrique sift dirt from stones and then grade into pebble sizes. They need these to build a sand barrel filter. They then wash the stone using a brand new concrete mixer, a gift from the Tampa Bay Presbytery. It is clean as no concrete has been mixed in it. When we started the day all indications were that our plan was off track - installing the water system could be a longer process as many jobs that should have been completed before our arrival had not been done. We are amazed at the energy and enthusiasm of the people as they push the project status to the next level. People and materials arrive. We ask for a woman operator and welcome Oneida to the team.

Sifting stones

Cleaning stones

We are all very tired  but we are back safely in the hotel enjoying a dinner of pork chops, delicious pickled beets, carrots and rice. Next the local bar to try dancing to punta music, drinking (more) salvavida beer with Johnny, Frank, Marie, Leigh, Jane and our best friend Alex.