This post was submitted by Ivy Tech student and ASB participant Tabitha L.

Today and yesterday have been truly the most rewarding days of my entire life! I physically hurt more than ever before but my heart and soul feels tranquil and fulfilled. The day started bright and early, all of us carrying shovels, buckets, and work gloves. We had about a 5 minute walk to a stream with slick rocks forming a sort of makeshift bridge that led to a 12ft by 16ft shack with dirt floor, a hole in the wall covered with chicken wire and an old sheet formed a window, a rusty tin roof with a dead armadillo on the roof, and no chinking between the wooden boards forming the walls… The money that we payed ($125) to come on this trip was used to buy supplies to make a concrete floor for this house.

We met the young woman that lived there with here 2 young children and nephew, their excitement and anticipation was palpable, as was ours. The recipe for the floor involved sand, rock, concrete and water. A few of us were stationed by the road to shovel sand and rock into buckets and carry them to the river where they were passed to waiting family members painstakingly walking on the slippery rocks to carry the supplies over the river to other family members waiting to mix the right amount for the floor. I was mainly on the river rocks hauling buckets and later mixing (by hand with a shovel) the concrete.

More than a few of us fell at least once, the buckets were extremely heavy, the concrete bags were 80 pounds each and could not be dropped in the water, and the sun was very hot!

However, I felt none of the pain (until later! haha) after seeing the smiles on the faces of the people living there!!! While we were ‘hurrying up to wait’ today the little boy came up to me while I was clearing trash from the river with a little cup. I looked inside to find a small minnow swimming about, we didn’t speak at first but he handed me the cup, pointed from the minnow to me and smiled…without words I had been given a gift!

He motioned for me to follow him so I did. His mother was waiting for us and with Giselle’s translating help she showed me how to fish for the minnows, she also told me when I asked that they only ate the ‘large’ minnows (large being bigger than an inch and a half long…) Semper Gumby came to visit because the water levels were near depleted so we had to ferry buckets of water from the river to pour in the toilets so we could flush them and no showers for us! We had a great dinner and almost all of us crashed within a few hours of arriving back at la casa de Juana!

This morning was hilarious, hearing everyones groans and moans from the sore muscles! It definetely makes things worse when you stop moving! haha After breakfast we headed back to the house. Today was overcast and there were a few sprinkles but nothing bad. We started out the same as yesterday and completed the rest of the floor successfully! Jamie, Brianna, and Elisa took the whole family to buy new shoes! The smiles on their faces were absolutely priceless! Once we finished the floor I wrote Con Amor (made with love) Ivy Tech 2008. The young children also made their mark by making handprints in the cement beside our family signature, it was an extremely touching moment. Besides all the hard work everyone put in today we did manage to have some fun! Mark ventured upstream chasing ducks so after a few comical attempts I followed to assist. Being a country girl has it’s advantages because while I managed to catch 3, Mark was not successful so we moved on to chickens.

Before the day was out, after several whole-hearted attempts, Mark captured his first chicken like an expert!!! Oorah!!! This has been truly amazing so far and I know it will only get better! More later!- Tabby