Making It Work

Well, it's been a busy week.

After arriving at the ASAM farm at the end of last week, I used the Easter weekend to get some things organized and then it was straight to work on Monday morning. The first order of business was to have the guys dig out all the soil that had washed into the foundations since they were poured last year (before the rainy season...)

Shop foundations covered with dirt

Then on Wednesday I began the mechanics training sessions, or rather, we tried to. The morning teaching went well, but the afternoon practical training time had to be cancelled in order to go out to the primary school and bring back the maize mill for some repairs. The only problem was that once we arrived at the school (via bush roads and burned out bridges), Tome discovered that he'd left the keys back at the farm.

Fortunately for us, we found a 10mm wrench in the truck the we could use to take off the door lock.

Breaking into the storage room

Of course, this was great fun for the school kids. What better place than at school for a practical lesson on Break & Enter?

Jacobo dismantling the mill so that we could put it into the back of the truck.

By Thursday, the building crew were ready to start the brick laying back at the shop site. Below is the official photo of the very first blocks being laid. Well done, Peter!

So we're making good progress. But the reality is, we will need a lot more blocks and steel than you see piled in the background here.

Each block costs about $2 delivered, each bag of cement is around $10. A worker's wage runs about $6 - $8 per day. We have enough funds at this point to keep things going for about another couple of weeks. But if you would like to help keep this project moving forward while I am here (to the end of May), please follow this link: http://samministries.org/get-involved/projects/maintenance-facility-project/

In the meantime, the teaching sessions are progressing well, and the students (Tome, Jacobo, Joao, and Castro) have already made some necessary repairs on the mission vehicles.

Bye for now...gotta get back to work!