road maintenance

wednesday morning brings road maintenance. our two groups combine and drive out to one of the more problematic sections of road and we unload the tools and get to work. erosion and rainwater has carved a deep trench all the way down a hill and our mission is to find large stones, organise them in the trench and fill in the rest with dirt. we work hard and fast, sometimes moving huge rocks that take 4 people to carry, wheeling barrows full of earth up and down.. eventually we run out of the designated red dirt and start digging to collect our own. after 3hrs of work we were pleased with the results, especially when the van test-drove over the section we'd been fixing up and noticed a big change (:

~

after lunch, our group headed out to a local school. it was built on an un-strategic slope and during the rainy season, the grounds flood. our job was to help dig a trench designed to trap the flowing rainwater and divert it past the buildings and down the hill. it was a solid afternoon of digging and the number of bugs, spiders, millipedes and scorpions we unearthed was pretty impressive. sebastian had hurt his hand shoveling in the morning and i teased him about being lazy until joe suggested he and jasmine become our cheerleaders which was probably the best idea of the day (: (thus explaining the photo of them below)

all in all a good enough day.. it was definitely nice to be doing some physical work once more, i'd surprisingly missed digging!!