School Is Cool! (& Construction Update)

School is cool because I get to go on field trips with my Dad.  I went with my Dad to Semesche. Semesche is a village where my Dad works on water.  They don’t have clean water. We hike up to the top of a hill to get to a spring .The spring is clean water they are trying  to get the water  in a pipe and take it to the spigots. They are pouring concrete in the water  tank  and I stood on it . It is fun to go with my Dad.   

School is also cool because I get to explore and find cool stuff.  One time I got to find a tarantula and write about it. Another time, we saw a poisonous caterpillar - It was cool. School is fun!    

This Tarantula was outside our house!

-Little Man

It has been really fun to take Little Man and Dancing Beauty with me while I have been observing our construction progress for the spring box and tank in Semesche.  It seems as though it is a great learning experience for both of them to see what their Dad does.  The following pictures show what we have accomplished so far with the spring box and tank in Semesche.  The tank is almost complete, but I do not have a picture since the form work on the walls was stripped.  I will update again with new photos once I have them.

      

The original Spring.

Katy, Little Man, Dancing Beauty and I got to visit on the 2nd day of construction where they excavated the spring. 

Here is the beginning of form work for the front wall of the spring box.

Here is the completed spring box.  The box is filled with clean stone to support the earth behind the front wall and has an access hatch on top so that the plumbing can be worked on as needed in the future.  The man in this picture is collecting water from the spring to make concrete for the tank.

Here the men are mixing concrete (by hand) and carrying it down to the tank (in 5-gallon buckets). 

Tank construction!

More Concrete & more pictures in another post.

In other exciting Ulpan news.  We took delivery of the pipe, fittings, glue, valves, spigots, etc. for the project last night.  Only in Guatemala does the delivery truck show up to a place with no electricity at 7:45 at night.  Several men in the village showed up to help us unload the truck and count everything by candle light and head lamps.  315 sticks of 2" pipe, 18 2" Ball Valves...  Late night, but lots of fun.  Across the language barrier it was evident that the men were excited about the project and it is really fun to recognize faces and hear my name from many of the men who have been most active in the construction of their new water system.

Next Friday (Dec. 7th) we host a team from Knox ProCorps to begin construction of approximately 2 km of pipe, fittings, valves, etc. & 8 access points for the people of Semesche.  We can't wait for the team to get here or to see water flowing from the choros (spigots).  Please pray for the team's travels and work.

-Mark