More From Mirador Oriente

Mixing concrete by hand

One of the handmade rebar towers

Marc and the divining rods

Hauling rock the old fashioned way

The feeding center

All day yesterday we were hearing there was going to be a national strike today. All the teachers, cab drivers, bus drivers, doctors, lawyers and one other group of people were going to strike today. This had the potential to be a very messy situation. While I certainly did not want to end up in the middle of it, I was wanting to see the mess. We left here at 6:00 in order to avoid as much as the mess and chaos as possible. Before we got to the bottom of the mountain, I had my camera out and ready for whatever I might see. As we neared the bottom, there were hundreds of policemen with their shields and hundreds of soldiers. I quickly switched on my camera to snap a quick shot as we drove by, only to see battery exhausted. I changed batteries, but it was too late for that shot.

There was amazingly little traffic as we approached Tegucigalpa. We were guessing most folks just took the day off and did not want to deal with what was expected to happen. Mirador Oriente is out on the Danli highway. As we got to the Danli highway, the road was blocked with soldiers. Perhaps we spoke too soon about no problems. Marc knows his way around better than a lot of Hondurans. We just took a detour through Los Pinos and still arrived at Mirador before 7:30.

Digging the footers was basically completed yesterday. The holes for the support posts have to be deeper than the rest of the footers. There was one hole that was not square enough for the support post because of rock. I jumped in and began chipping away with my trusty bar. It was a messy job. And slow. Tuesday, when I had the pick axe, I felt like singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Today, I felt like Fred Flintstone working in the rock quarry. But, I almost got the whole job done. Some of the guys took over. They do work faster than me.

Everything is done by hand and I mean everything. The rebar towers are constructed by hand. The concrete is mixed by hand and hauled in buckets. No concrete truck drives up and dumps the concrete and drives off. It is amazing to stand back and watch. I had opportunity to do that as rebar was being cut and tied together. There is no way anyone in the states would doall of that, especially for $5.00 a day.

We had to leave and go get our friend Terry Rikard. We left at noon and found the strike was completely over. Terry wanted to take us to a restaurant to which we had never been. A place called Gino's, a fine Italian establishment. Remember, I had been in a hole chipping rock and Marc is always dirty when we work. No one paid any attention to us.

When we got back to the job site, we learned we were one piece of rebar short. How many gringos does it take to go get one piece of rebar? In this case, five.

Then Marc took the divining rods and found some water. I thought it was hokey until I took them and saw them go crazy right over the water. The water is close enough to put a well, which will help with the pilas and the showers.

All the rebar towers were constructed and some were set in concrete. A lot was accomplised today.

There is a feeding center in Mirador Oriente that feeds at least 250 children everyday. Our friends from Indiana have been going down there everyday and helping with the feeding. Also, there are a couple of little girls that are just stealing our hearts. We are getting to know more and more people. We are having fun as good things are being accomplished.

Terri