15 August 2011

Today I helped work at a build site.  One of the missionaries here is getting a girl’s school built.  It is going to be a four-year program and girls can come live in dorms at the school.  It is a few minutes away from the clinic.  The missionary has lived here in Cote d’Ivoire for most of here life.  She used to be a nurse and work at the clinic.  She now helps teach literacy classes for some of the women in Korhogo.  This girl’s school has been her project for the past few years.  Today they were pouring the cement in to form one of the floors of the dorm building.  It got started a little late because they did not have enough people.  We came around 10 AM or so, and they were just getting started with pouring the cement.  It seemed like a full family affair.  Most of the men, young boys, and young women were on the top of the building helping filling in the floor.  Men below would get cement from the machine, put it in a bucket, pass the bucket to men hanging onto a ladder, and pass the buckets all the way up to the people on the top.  Then on the top there was just lines of people, and we would take the bucket and pass it on to the person next to us.  It would go down the assembly line till the end where it was poured into the daul (I have no idea how to spell this word that is just what they called it and how that word sounded to me).  Then someone would help smooth it out once it was full.  Then there were a bunch of women down in the courtyard hired to cook lunch for everyone.  Then all the little kids were below hanging out.  I was up on the top floor passing buckets in the assembly line.  It was quite funny at times.  I had cement everywhere, and at one point someone flung a bucket and cement went all over my face and head.  Christie and I stayed and worked there for a few hours.  It was nice to get to hang with all the people and help out, but after those few hours I was exhausted.  Thankfully, we were able to eat a late lunch and then go back.  Apparently when you do this the whole entire floor has to be done at once.  The missionaries and some of the men were working till 2 AM to get it finished.  It was a long workday for them, but they got it all finished.  God worked the weather out perfectly because the area has to be wet every day after it is done.  It rained every day after that except for the day we worked, so it was perfect.  The school still has a ways to go till it is finished, but I cannot wait to hear when it is finished.  It will be such a great ministry and opportunity for the girls here.  Please pray that God will provide the rest of the funds that are needed, so it can all be finished soon.