March 6th 2017

Wow! What a day. We woke up early today to take a quick walk around the community. Today is laundry day for the women in the community and we got to see their laundry area as we went on our morning walk with Kathy. It was also nice to see kids going to school with their moms early in the morning. At 8am, we had our breakfast and headed to the village to meet meet the masons who would be showing us how to build  the stoves over the next few days. Candace introduced us to Carlos, Ceasar, Ricardo, Checha, Josue & Aroldo. We got divided into 5 groups among the masons and we were off and working. Long hot day full of sweat for everyone! The masons taught us the steps to building the stoves. Mixing the mortar and cutting pumus concrete block to fit the design. We really appreciate the effort the masons put into teaching us the artwork of masonry. Around 1 pm we had lunch brought to us by our hosts at Posados Los Volcanos and had activities with the children of the village. It was so heart warming to see them so happy to be playing with us. While most of us being some what mute towards the language, that didn't block us from enjoying their presence and understanding how they were just happy to be with us. Warm hugs and big smiles everywhere were the best! After play time with the kids we continued working till 4pm when we then headed back to the hotel. We took a much needed 1 hour break at the hotel before we went to Aroldo's home to learn to make tortillas from scratch. They let us make about 4 pounds worth of tortillas. It was a great experience. Long hot day at work but we all are excited for tomorrows!!