Service Project Day 1

Today we started a service project in the barrio. We headed down to the basketball court where they have the "office" space for the local barrio government. There was one "room" that they wanted tile laid. they Also wanted a cinder block wall built behind their stage. These were our two project for these two mornings. Today we sat or squatted in this "room" and hammered nails inserted into a pipe in order to chip away at the concrete. We needed to rough it up a bit prior to laying tile. While moving the contents of this room out onto the grass, we found an inhabitant living there, a rat. We ran all around the room with all of us scrambling to get out of the way amidst screaming. The rat ran out and into the next room, where Along finally caught it. He took it outside, pounded it's head with a rock and let it lie there on the side of the street. That was the end of that! We also hauled about 300 cinder blocks from a truck, up a ramp and across to the basketball court to where the stage was. Next we bagged sand and rocks to make concrete later. We were still working on chipping the concrete floor, it was such a slow and tedious process. When we were done, we headed back up to the house for much needed showers and food.

We left for Quinogentin Elementary school where there were about 200 kids. It was pretty crazy for a while, but it was so great to see our team take a group of about 15 kids, sit down with them and walk through the salvation bracelets.

We headed home, stopping to take pictures of the famous tarsier. They are the smallest primate in the world, only found in the Philippines. As you can see, I think they look like ewoks. We also stopped along the barrio road to take pictures of a huge, deadly spider. Marita cooked for us one last time. Our favorite: rice, pancit and mangoes!