Mario Cota

January21st, We go back to the usual work routine the parish usually encompasses. Breakfast consists of the now classical beans and oatmeal with a side of bananas and bread. After feeding ourselves faster than a child who just found a cookie jar, we took of on the magical fantastic magnificent loyal old and reliable red truck on which we have been traveling around so far. We were dispatched to the women´s center tasked with doing more construction work. By now, construction worked has becomed a loathed activity. The sweat and blood shed during these work assignments is recognized by many in our group as arduous, since blood is literally shed due to the many cuts received from carrying rocks or work tools and sweat is caused by the physical strain of moving heavy objects around. Many of us would have rather been run over at a black Friday opening than having to move more rocks. The knowledge that we were sent to do construction because the other groups were not physically able to perform work of that nature and the thought that we would only have to work for three hours were our only consolation, although three hours may have seemed to be an eternity for some. During the three hours we spent there, a variety of different tasks were assigned to different groups. The first half-hour was spent mostly picking up rocks and tossing them over to one of the terraces being arranged in the women´s center. The rocks´ weight did take a toll, but we managed to move a large amount of them quickly. The amount of large rocks requested was fulfilled so the small rocks that still had to be moved were assigned to about four people while the others split to do other jobs. Planting seedlings and watering them, pounding newly set dirt, breaking up rocks with chisels, hauling bags of dirt to another terrace near by, and shoveling dirt for those hauling the dirt was what was available to do at the time. I personally spent the rest of the time hauling bags of dirt to the terrace, and by the time we returned to the parish I felt accomplished from having been able to endure the entire time carrying the bags, since my physical endurance is not my strongest attribute. Let´s just say that I am glad I do not work in a Chinese factory that would happen to have a manager making us work twelve hours a day, but that is a subject not relevant at the time. Returning to the parish I had lunch and immediately returned to the hotel for a nap since I deemed that the best way to use the time we had until returning to work was supposed to take place. At two o´clock we reported to the parish in order to set out to work and I realized that instead of working that day, we were going to put together a food basket for a family in need. The market was a quick walk from the parish. We stopped along the first merchant that we saw and bought everything there because he had everything we needed. Corn, instant coffee, noodles, and cooking oil were among the items we purchased from him. The amount of time we took to buy everything was around fifteen minutes, so when we returned to the parish, the longterms remarked that we were the fastest group to finish. I would attribute that to the fact that we were so tired from the morning, but I would rather say that we are just decisive shoppers. To make up for the time that still remained, we cleaned windows around the parish. The rest of the afternoon was free for us, and after supper we were invited to a bonfire by the group from Winsconsin next door. We sat around the bonfire and conversed until it was pretty late so I returned to the hotel and enjoyed beautiful, peaceful, delightful, relaxing,