We are floored!

This recent wet, misty Saturday morning, Allen and his crew headed out to pour the concrete floor in one of the rooms of the team house we are building. This was our largest pour yet, and several days were spent in preparation for this day.

First, the crew had to build two support posts (out of cinderblocks) down to undisturbed soil in central points of the room. Then, during the last few days of the week, they poured cement beams across from the foundation walls to the columns, to support the poured cement floor.

A larger water supply than we have previously used at the site was required. Allen purchased four additional 55 gallon drums, for a total of seven, and Russell filled them here in the city, drove them up to the property, and unloaded them full of water.

Forty-five bags of cement were purchased (some of these were used for the beams), and a larger than usual crew of workers was asked to be on hand early Saturday morning, at 6:30am.

As Saturday dawned grey and rainy, we all waited to see what the weather would do. It is often grey and misty at dawn, but sunny later in the morning. Some of the workers, deciding that we wouldn't be working that day, didn't show up. After an hour or so, the overcast was clearing some, and Allen the intrepid (with Russell encouraging him all the way) decided that the work would go forward.

The weather kept things cooler, which the gringos in the crew always appreciate. Two mixing crews worked steadily to keep up the pace of creating the needed cement. The prepared cement was shoveled into Mudzilla's bucket, hauled to the edge of the building, and poured in. Then, back for more - all day long!

Because of the wet conditions, a few additional bags of cement were needed, beyond what was estimated, and Russell drove back into town to pick those up. It was on that trip that he took the camera out to the property, so the only shot we have is of the completed floor, receiving a final surface smoothing:


Looks nice, huh? Of course, Allen used to pour concrete all the time when he was a new home builder in Maryland. For a pour of this size . . . he would have had to pay the concrete delivery company an extra fee, to have them send out a mixing truck with such a tiny load! We would have happily paid the extra fee, if we could have had a concrete truck pull up our driveway and dump the cement into it's location here!

On Monday, Allen will be setting up the location for the second building, which we will be starting to work on soon. Here is a picture of Pastor Dionisio (who was part of the work crew this past Saturday), and a part of the stockpile of supplies which have now been delivered to the site. Things are moving right along!