The Crews

Every day, hordes of local kids hung around the building site.  In order to keep the tools from disappearing, we put the kids to work.  The oldest was 11, the youngest 5- and man, those kids love pounding nails!  The cool thing about that is these are all neighborhood kids.  They all have ownership in the house.  They tell each other "I built that wall."   Hopefully they will look out for the house and the little family- and one day, help each other like they helped us.



It was pretty interesting communicating with our little friends.  They taught me words like martillo and clavos, which I promptly used to tell them to put the hammer and nails back in the house.  One little guy helped me carry a window.  Looking very self-important, he said "No rompa."  I didn't know the word, and he couldn't hold the window and act it out.  Turns out we understood each other perfectly-he was telling me not to break it!

While I worked on the big house, Stuart's group broke into two crews.  They were able to build a small, two room house start to finish.  They also put new roofs on two shacks and made a floor for a guy with a wheelchair.  One of the families who got insulation in their roof had a daughter in the hospital with pneumonia.  She couldn't come home because it was too cold.  After one day's work, the new roof made that house feel so warm that the not only the girl but the extended family were able to enjoy hanging out there. 

This is getting long, so here's some photos to check out.  More stories to come...