Pictures!!

Yes, I know. You are SO excited to see pictures from my trip. Other people’s pics are always so entertaining. Really.

I have over 1200 pictures. I could feasibly animate the entire trip for you, if I wanted to. Look for it in theaters sometime next year. It will be a hit.

Here are a few select pics:

This is what it looked like the first day. Dirt. Just dirt. And shovels.


This was after the shovels removed the dirt. In select areas.


Then rocks and cement were added to our perfectly good holes.


This is how far we got it before we left. The family and the mason will finish the rest by December. I was a bit bummed that we didn't finish. But we ain't exactly Extreme Makeover here people. 12 people with shovels can only do so much.



This is a friend, Elisa, on the first day. She is posing for this picture, so that she looks like she did some work. Please note that she is nowhere near where we actually dug any holes.


This is an adorable baby who lived in the house where we learned how to make tortillas. And by “make” I really mean “watch someone else make them, then eat them all”.


This is our fireman putting a band aide on the knee of one of the kids who hung out with us all week.


Me and my boyfriend Wilson. He will live in the house we helped build. He told the girl who speaks Spanish that I was bonita. He’s 17. I told him to call me in 10 years.


Fireman. Who can dig a hell of a ditch, in addition to putting out fires.


My friend who asked my name in Spanish and then every time he saw me he said, “Hello Dawn.” I love that he tried out his English on me. That was the extent of our verbal communication. But we still hung out the entire week, bonding over wire and dirt.


Me and Mark. The youngest and oldest people on the trip. Mark knows everything about everything. His nickname was Jeeves. Cause if you had a question, you’d just ask him and he’d have an encyclopedia caliber answer in 2.5 seconds.


Our fireman and the fireman who will live in the house we helped build. They bonded. The buckle in Rick’s hand is a gift from Henry, a token of his appreciation and brotherhood. It was also a token of all of us instantly bursting into tears.


Getting ready to put out some fires.


First someone cuts a huge-ass piece of rebar into little pieces (about 800 pieces). Then someone else bends all 800 pieces into squares, rectangles and triangles (above).


Then they line them up.


Then we cut four pieces of wire for every piece of bent rebar.


Then we employ child labor to help us tie each of the pieces to other long pieces.


Then we go a little cooky.


Here's my boyfriend and I on the last day. He asked if we could trade hats. I said okay. Highly sanitary. But how do you say no to that smile?


The Leap.


The second cutest group.


The first cutest group.