Monday was the first work day here in the Dominican. Breakfast was at 7, so a lot people woke up at 6:30, well I woke up at 7:03. Oops. We had breakfast all together, then Rachael split us up into 2 groups. One group went to teach and the rest of us stayed at the base. The group that stayed was going to do some construction. Rachael explained to us that in the Dominican the work ethic is not very similar to what it is in Canada. In Canada we always want to finish one task and move on to the other and another one, and another one. Here there isn’t always something to do.
We waited for Max to come back from driving people to schools. While waiting, we just sat around the breakfast table and we talked. We asked each other questions like what is your favorite article of clothing and what is our favorite meal. It was a good use of our time until Max came back. Finally, Max came back and he wanted us to help him in his shop. We went into his shop which is just on the base, and he just showed us around. Rachael said every year they always had to organize the shop. Several people just dump things in there when Max and Kina aren’t here. Alexa and I were put on pipe duty. We had to look all over the shop for any kind of pipes. Then we had to sort them according to shape and size. There were many pipes that were already used because here they try as best they can to not waste. Some pipes we had to throw out because they were stuck together and we couldn't use them again. Other pipes had holes in them, so we had to get rid of them. When we finished the sorting the pipes, we went and helped Sarah and Jesse with sorting the nails. Jesse was trying to straighten out the nails and we were sorting them.
Kina wanted to make the place more cozy, so she bought some curtains and wanted us to help her hang them up. Rachael wanted each girl to try using power tools, and she asked Luke to teach us. Poor Luke. Fortunately for Luke I knew how to drill a hole. Dad if you’re reading this, thanks, it was all you today. We decided where we wanted to hang the curtains, at which height, and the length of the rods. We asked the people still working in the shop to cut the rods so they can fit on the windows. The first window was kind of rough. I had to drill at a really weird angle. We had some problems with it too. The nail that I was supposed to screw in the hook to was wobbly, so we had to find a way to stabilize it. We got a washer and shoved it behind and it kind of helped. It wasn’t perfect, but we made it work, Dominican style. Go team. We finally got that side done and went onto the other side. Don’t worry we learned from our mistakes. That second side was better. We put the curtains on the rods and got the rods up on the hooks, and it looked great. The second window was great. Best one we had yet. Again, thanks dad. We got that window done just in time for lunch. We went and had lunch with just the construction group and we will continue to do some more construction until the teaching group comes back.
No comments:
Post a Comment