New Year's Day

A New Year's Day post from traveler Jamie Hamilton from Onondaga Community College:

Today is the first day of the New Years. We started off our day with breakfast from our host like usual. After that we headed to the work site to finish our stoves. The day consisted of mixing cement with hand tools and cementing bricks together. This is hard work. the sweat was dripping from my partner and mine face. Lifting and carrying all the blocks and cement all over the construction site is hard manual labor. Even the kids in the village wanted to pitch in and help build the stove by caring the buckets of cement. At 1pm we took a break for lunch. Our host were so nice by bringing the meal to us and this woman in the village allowed us to eat in the house on her floor. This was a very welcoming experience and it was nice to enjoy a meal with the stove builders who have been working so hard and helping us through the whole process of building the stove. Once lunch was over it was straight back to making the stove. Putting the finishing touch on stove is the hardest part. This smooth layer of cement had to be places on the outside of the stove. This work was primarily left to the stove makers because it was a very precise process that could not be messed up. I was unable to do this part without messing it up each time :). Finishing the stove was the best part. It was nice to see how happy the family was to have their new stove. After completing the stove we went back to the hotel to go view the New Year's Day celebrations. Once getting to central park it was to packed to see much so we headed back to the hotel shortly after. A little while after being at the hotel I unfortunately got a soar tummy and spent the rest of the night relaxing but one thing that did make me feel better was the frozen bananas covered in chocolate that we had served with dinner. This gave me a little piece of home when I wasn't feeling my best.

Jamie