So far, I know I've been a day behind on the blogging. I am trying to catch up, but our daily schedule doesn't match up too well with the hours at the Cafe Internet, so I am making due by writing the blog on the laptop the night before and then sending it a few minutes before the cafe closes on me (and sometimes even a few minutes after!).

Thursday has been a long day full of challenges. Breakfast was fine, then the drive to Emvacadero. We walked in to the village, like I have already told you about, this time carrying in a days worth of clean water, and then when we got there they told us we really should try to get the van through the water, so Cappucino went back to try it. The van made it fine, and although it saves our legs the work of walking, it is barely, and I mean barely, any faster than when we walked because the road is so deeply rutted.

As we started looking at the plans and getting to work, we realized that the cement blocks we had were not the size specified in the plans. So, Donette put a call in to friends in Guatemala about whether these blocks would work, and then we waited for their reply. These friends are coming in from Guatemala to help us later this week, so you will hear more about them then. Finally we found out that we could in fact proceed.

We dug a shallow trench for the foundation of our latrines, and then built 5 layers of cement block for 2 latrines. After 4 or 5 hours of work we realized one simple but fatal mistake we made throughout our building. We had been thoroughly and diligently using the level on each block, so we were very close to our mark, but, as the day wore on one wall on each of the 2 latrines was getting a bit off track. We did not realize this until we were finished with this step one, so we had to backtrack quite a few blocks to get the walls square with each other again. After a long hot day of building and rebuilding we got to see step one finished and it was muy bonita.

Throughout the process we are working with the people of Emvacadero, not just for them. We are side by side at every step of the way, learning together the best ways to interpret the United Nations plans that we are using, which as we all know, plans on paper don't usually work out in real life without some improvising and flexibility. Add in a language barrier and the long day of hard physical work has a whole new dimension! I think we all, on both sides of this language barrier, are going to bed tonight fulfilled by a good days work. When we leave, not only will the people of Emvacadero have two (maybe more depending on how the work keeps going) composting latrines, they will also know how to follow these plans and build more latrines for other families in the community. This is what we are hoping is making this partnership between Jewell and Emvacadero different - we are trying to establish lasting changes that will make real differences in the life of this community, not just come down and offer manual labor and supplies. At the same time of course, our students are learning invaluable lessons about grassroots international relations, Honduran culture and real world application of their liberal arts education. All in a days work.