DAY #9

The day of frustration. We woke up at 6:45am, ate breakfast and went to the first worksite. It was the most windy day yet - sand was being blown every which way. It was almost impossible to keep your eyes open. It was horrible and put us all on edge. There was nowhere to go to avoid being sandblasted for 8 hours straight. Even scrubbing every inch of our bodies didn't get all of the sand off our skin.

I got to do a few things today at the house. I helped spray the yellow oxide plaster on the outside of the house. Duraid and I stood on opposites sides of a tall makeshift scaffold to do so. At one point I was straddling the scaffolding so I could pass the little spatter contraption down to get it refilled with the plaster. One of the local workers was inside the house and looked out the window to see me hovering on the scaffold. The absolute look of surprise on his face was priceless to say the least. Yes, I am a girl and I am on a scaffold high above the ground doing work. HA! Duraid and I had fun spattering each other with the plaster.


"Plastering" the house with yellow oxide

Because of the crappy weather other things we have observed so far this trip kind of got to me and most of our group. Our Mahalapye affiliate leader Fatima is so lazy ad useless. Today she sat in the shade all day and then ended up just napping on a bench while everyone worked. The homeowners haven't put many "sweat equity" hours in, the women do cook lunch but they also have two of our teammates helping them. Most of the time the women just sit and talk to each other all day. The husband of the family works as a truck driver so he's never around.


Socializing

The kids are cute but are becoming overwhelming - you can't do anything without them jumping on you and asking to wear your sunglasses, gloves or hat.


Kids loving our sunglasses, hats and gloves

The older kids (teens) have been asking other teammates for their jewelery, hats, shoes and money. The men workers are also asking our male teammates for the same. I know that they are of a completely different culture but it just seems like they want so much from us, we're already giving them a house!

We did get a treat of ice cream from Duraid! There were extra so I had two! I realized later that the ice cream was made with ingredients that give a similar effect as the WOW! potato chips...but I felt fine the rest of the night thank goodness.