www.buildchangewithnaomi.com > Weeks 4 & 5: Building in Villamontes

One of the homes underway in Villamontes
You can see here how much cement was needed to level the land!
The walls should be finished in a couple more days!
You can start to see the foundations here
Adolfo with one of the Albañiles
Foundations in process
The water is so precious, we capture every drop!
Me with my favorite albañil, Demetrio
Water! So exciting!
2 of the guys joking around
Lunch break
Girls hovering over me in the internet cafe
Beethoven, "my" dog, giving me a lick goodbye
Our water tank!
My last day full-time in Villamontes, but I'll be back often
My handywork, the little wire figure 8s. Hope they hold!
The assembly line I joined for the day, cranking out rebar foundations
Who need a "workbench" when there are tree trunks around?
In front of houses 4 and 5
Homes 4 and 5 already dug and ready for cement
Me taking inventory of the bars of rebar to make sure we pìck up enough
We rented a pickup for the day
Picking up all our steel for the foundation
Don Hugo, one of the dads
Negotiating with the new albañil
The first group of families
Marco Antonio, one of the dads, goofing around after the morning's work is done
Moli, on of the dads, in front of our temporary storehouse
Marco, one of the sons, who was shy about having his picture taken at first
Martha and Danny after the morning's work is done
Burning all the brush and sticks we collected
The basic gist of the morning: chop, rake, and burn sticks and debris so we can deposit materials
Any one of the mothers is much more agile with the machete than I can dream of becoming
Getting out my trusty gloves that are my lifesaver
You can tell this was taken early, I was still relatively clean!
For once we didn't have to shoo away the goats since they were eating the sticks we cleared!
Families hard at work
Clearing dirt and sticks to make room for the delivery of rocks, bricks, and dirt
Danny, one of the kids, waking up still
Somebody smart brought a bag of toys for the kids to play with while we worked
Camped out on our pile of rocks
Oscar and me at the end of the day
One of our hardest workers! I was so glad he was there yesterday
Parents of 2 of the families whose bricks we unloaded
Discussing how to best prevent the bricks from being stolen
One of many stashes of bricks we made yesterday
Who ever thought a truck of bricks would make me so happy?
Bricks, bricks, and more bricks
Our first truckload of rocks
We began excavating the first house!
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