Manual Labor

Putting cement into buckets.
I am the one in the white shirt squatting with
the black hat.

Today was our first day working on the storage building. As it turns out, the building will also be a clothing store, a office supply store and a storage room. We got to the site at 8 AM and the local Rwandan workers had been there since 6 AM. Some of them even woke up at 4 AM to walk 2 hours to the village. We started off lifting rocks as big as we can carry to the corners of the almost finished foundation. After a bit of that, we helped the workers mix cement, fill cans with the cement and carry the cans to the workers laying down rocks. I was lifting one of the cans of cement into a wheelbarrow and it was very heavy so I dropped it in. The cement flew up into my face and I got a little bit on the corner of my mouth and in my nose. Luckily, I washed it out quickly and laughed it off. Back to work it was for me! It seemed to me that I was one of the most in shape and strongest out of the 14 of us. A lot of my fellow volunteers had back problems, got cuts or needed a break from the hot sun. Around 10:30/11ish we got a 30 minute break. We went back to our guest house and I had some nuts with a power bar to hold me over until lunch. For breakfast, I decided to skip and made myself a peanut butter sandwich with rice crackers my Mom brought me from Florida. I did the math and figured out that I can make a double sandwich (cracker, peanut butter, cracker, peanut butter, cracker) which will hopefully hold me over until 11ish so I can sleep an extra hour.

I was a bit tired after our break but time went by fast until we had about an hour of free time before lunch. I was excited for some good starch to fill me up after a hard day.

Rachel, Elana, Ilyssa, Aliza, me and Brinley from the
top of the hill next to school

Directly after lunch we walked up a big hill to meet with the teachers at the school. The school is at the top of the hill for one reason- "See Far, Go Far." That moto is the moto of the village for the students to become leaders and "go far" in the world. The view was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. To your right, you could see some of Rwanda's green hills. If you look straight you see a lake, that looks like a river, and to your left you can see the red houses of the village.

At 3 was sports extracurriculars. Four of us were assigned to volleyball while others were at soccer or basketball. We did some classic volleyball drills then played a little game. It was a bit awkward because we didn't understand our role; we weren't running the sport but it felt like we were intruding on their sports. Sports ended at 5:30 and we had some free time before dinner. After dinner we had our "Thorns and Roses" activity/meeting which went way to long.

Tomorrow we are split up, some are building again, like me, and some are teachers.