Just a little update on what I have been doing outside of my time spent at Bartingale Mechanical. At the end of February, I went with a group of about 30 from our church on a trip to the Dominican Republic to build houses with the organization Casas Por Cristo. This is the same organization I went to Juarez Mexico with a few years ago.
This year we were able to build 3 houses in 3 days! The first day the entire group went to each building site and prepared the ground to pour a concrete floor, mixed the concrete with a couple mixers and poured the floors. We started around 8:30 and finished the last one about 6:30. While some were doing the concrete work others were cutting 2×4’s and building the walls. All of the wood used on the Dominican project is treated wood and comes from either the US or Canada since there are not many local trees that are suitable for this type of construction.
The second day we broke into groups and each group built the homes. The homes are built with wood and a metal roof. There are no windows only shutters. The homes are wired and have lights and receptacles in each room and a couple lights outside. There is no plumbing in the houses. At the location I worked at they have water from some kind of municipal service but it is not safe to drink so most of the people have bottled water delivered. Next to their home they have bananas trees growing and they have planted some coconut palms, avocado trees and a lime tree.
The family I built for was a husband and wife who have three children with the youngest being around 6 months old. They are a very nice couple. My brother and sister were also able to join us on this trip. My sister speaks Spanish so she was able to communicate well with the family. She spoke with the husband about his dad dying when he was only 9 years old and that he was raised by his grandparents for the most part. He would like to open a meat market as he has been trained as a butcher. We spent the last day at the beach in Puerto Plata so that was very nice.
