While our days have been filled with a non-stop drizzle, which even continues outside the windows now, our spirits and energy have not diminished. Not at all. Yesterday, our work had us laying the foundation for the new classroom and the corridor which will protect the 250 students of San Miguel as they move from class to class. As well, we were able to patch holes in the playground which led under the fence and into a ravine. We put to work a lot of the things we learned throughout many years of Scouting. We needed to ensure our repairs to the ground and hillside would withstand erosion from the rain. Although only time will tell, from the rain we've had over the last two days, it is so far looking very promising that our work will stand for quite some time.
One of the biggest parts of yesterday was certainly moving dirt. The soil here is quite sandy and is surprisingly red. Anyone who found themselves at CJ in PEI (any of the CJs there) will remember the red soil and just how hard it is to get it off your shoes. This is a constant struggle here. The soil is a main component of the foundation. It's amazing just how much is needed to fill-in what we would consider to be the area of a fairly small classroom.
Today, there were a number of tasks at hand. While the bus left the Scout Headquarters for the build site, there were four members of the Canadian Contingent dressed in their tan uniforms. There were interviews with the radio and two newspapers this morning. The word about the project has been getting out. It's exciting to watch this project grow even further and faster than we had ever anticipated.
At the same time as the interviews were going on, there was a lot of work happening at San Miguel School. Because of the rain this morning, all the work was forced inside, but even that couldn't stop us. We sanded down the walls in the classrooms, as well as the desks, so that they would be all ready to patch and paint in the coming week.
Once the rain started to let up, back we went to work again. Today's tasks were bigger than yesterdays, but nothing we couldn't handle. The walls of the new classroom started to stretch upward. This was certainly the first big sign that the project was moving forward. The foundation for the corridor is now nearly completely leveled. In fact, things are moving so quickly, we met with the architect this evening just to see what the plan of attack would be over the coming days. This is when we heard some astonishing news.
While speaking with Nelson, our favourite architect, we learned that he had been contacted and had actually spent the day running around to talk with a variety of offices. First, the school itself sits on the border between two different towns. Apparently, the mayors of both towns are very interested in supporting the project and have started attempting to out-do each other in showing it. They've pledged tiles for the corridor, bags of cement and 50 litres of paint to start. When this news got out, we got another big supporter for the project. The Ministry of Education of Paraguay has voiced its support for the project. We had all wondered how it was the government could let communities get to the level they were now at, with slums popping up all around, and within the capital. As it turns out, this project has provided just the spark that was needed to get a fire started. Although no clear indication of the level of support has been outlined yet, it looks like the school will be getting funding so that the project can be improved and expanded over the next two weeks. This project seems to have served as inspiration to a government to get more involved in community development. The influence of Scouting never ceases to amaze.
How was our day today? It was 100km long.
Good Scouting
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