Rained Out

Jambo everyone! Today was officially our first day of construction on the site and it was definitely an eventful one. We arrived at the project site at around 8AM this morning ready to get our hands dirty. We first spoke with the contractor who was a really nice, easygoing guy that thankfully was VERY patient with our poor construction skills and even poorer Swahili.

Shortly after we started laying the bricks it began to drizzle lightly, but to us, this was no reason to stop working. HOWEVER, in an unfortunate turn of events, the light drizzle soon became a torrential downpour which forced us to stop working for a couple of hours.

Even though we had a slight delay, we still made it productive by enjoying the downtime with the children and getting to know them better. One kid, Abdullah, was a complete ball of sass. He began speaking to us in Swahili, and when we failed to respond, revealed that he is perfectly fluent in english. His proficiency in English put our lack of Swahili to shame.

Besides Abdullah's surprise bilingualism, the greatest surprise of the day was when we discovered that we laid the first row of bricks in a reverse mirrored image. Thus, after pleading our case to the contractor, we decided to flip the interior layout for maximum security for the children. After dealing with this minor blip, we were able to quickly lay two more layers of brick, thanks to some great tutoring from our fellow workers. Hopefully we'll continue to completely gain their trust and learn from their expertise as the days go on!

SWAHILI PHRASE OF THE DAY:

Unaweza kunifundisha mimi kiswahili: Can you teach me in swahili?