March 17
On Saturday morning the village men arrived at 7 am ready to work alongside the team members. Tasks were assigned to the Isnag men and the team members. By 9am the five footings had been excavated and the tops exposed and the right wall and support beams had been completely removed. The young members of the team, Jeremy and Ben were assigned the task of climbing up to the ceiling to jack the trusses free of the existing wall and other team members along with the village men cut supporting posts to the proper length to support the trusses. A steel pipe was cut and a screw jack brought in the luggage from the US was welded to the top of the pipe. The concrete column tops had to be chiseled to expose the four imbedded rebar rods. The village men took to this task with energy and had all the rebar exposed by lunch. As the wall was dismantled the termite damage was noticed. One 2 x 2 in particular looked fine from the side but when you examined the end there was just a shell with nothing inside. It was mentioned that this is like some Christians that put on a good face but there heart lacks the vision they portray.
Lunch was served by our cooks and most always had rice and some type of vegetable. We often had fresh bread baked by the kitchen staff. One day for lunch I had the best hot dog buns made and baked by the cooks. We had spaghetti with tomato sauce, baked chicken, rice with chicken, pancit, and I must mention the sili, a very hot pepper (known by Nard as Isnag microwave). Hot peppers were available on request and there were no grubs, balut (fertilized duck egg) or bi-lingual goat served on this trip (a special delicacy).
After lunch James and Vernon arrived in the R44 with Brian. As before village people went to greet the newcomers. The afternoon had additional tasks assigned such as Jeremy cutting rebar to length and bending the required stirrups with the rebar bender that was fabricated in the SIL shop for the water project in 2005. The footings were cleaned, drilled and rebar was epoxied in the pattern for the concrete columns on the right side of the church. Additional rebar was overlapped and welded to the exposed rebar in the chiseled columns. This rebar extended upward out of the top of the column where it was tied to the rebar in the concrete beam that supports the roof trusses. The day finished with a concrete pour up to the level of the chiseled concrete surface.
Saturday evening was my wife Darlene’s birthday back in the USA. I climbed to the top of the world in Dibagat to attempt to call Dar and wish her a happy birthday. The phone did not connect with the local carrier but Jo-Jo and Chris who was with me was able to contact Nard on Face book and asked him to call Dar and wish her a happy birthday. Nard followed up and Dar received her happy birthday call.
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| Jim and an Isnag working together to knock cement to expose rebar! |
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| Chris supervising cutting of plywood! |
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| Isnags building column form |
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| James and Nolan supervising forms on left side of church |
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| Rudy and Nard got in the action to sift sand! |
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| Welcome to Dibagat - Nolan and Chris - our two most senior team members but still in great shape! |
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| James holding termites handy work on church wood! |
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| Termites for lunch? Has lots of great protein! - the pancit bihon for lunch looks like they are full of termites!! But then I would have had them eat the termites live because they taste better that way! |
More tomorrow....
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