Panterra :: MySchool Journal

Daily Journal

Journey of Giving - Medical Expedition

Day 1 - Part 2

The Builders and a Community Lunch

The crew deliver the building supplies to the beach.

The waves are small considering what
they could be so it makes it easy to unload.

We carry the plywood to the site.

Next the lumber is unloaded.

Stasia and Anna organize the nails, screws, washers, etc.
The tools the builders have to work with are: 2 hammers,
2 saws, 2 ratchets with sockets mounts, nails, screws,
washers, one tape measure, one hand drill and gloves. That
was it. Shovels were borrowed from the community members.

One of the fisherman helps dig the holes for the posts of the palapa.

The posts were measured then sawed to size.

Kraeg dug the hole and Bob and Anna line up the first post.

All four posts are up, squared and we're ready for the next stage.

Hammering the brackets into place.

Riny places the holes for the screws.

And now the basic structure is formed.

A little measuring here, a bit of cutting there and a few nails to pound.

We're getting close, finally the roof.

The team of builders.
From left to right - two local fishermen, Anna, Mellisa,
Dr. Garcia, Riny, Kraeg, Bob, Chris and cousin Lucas.

Right beside us in another palapa the fishermen are filleting the days catch.

Stingrays were also part of the catch.

"Okay little fella you say you suffer with dry skin. Tell me
when this started..." Um... excuse me, Loiuse but I believe
you're talking to our lunch. But please don't let me interrupt.

The fishermen prepared stingray ceviche for lunch
as a thank you for what we had done for the community.

The lunch was appreciated...

... and very delicious. We were grateful of the gesture.

Back to the boat for lunch, awaiting our next building adventure.

This was our first building project and we had a design in mind. The design included adding gutters to collect the fresh rain water.

While it took us longer than we thought it turned out practical and well received by the fishermen. They were happy.

The entire team of participants popped in, once in a while, to hammer a few nails, saw a few boards and generally help out. We all had a hand in the construction of our first palapa.

At the same time we were building the palapa a couple of the fishermen, in the palapa next to us, busily filleted the days catch of fish and stingray. This was the first time most of the Canadian team had ever seen a stingray close up. It was cool to watch the fishermen filleting the wings of the stingray, carrying on with their normal days work.

A very cool gift was offered. A gift of stingray ceviche and fresh tortillas for lunch. One of the fishermen spent a couple of hours preparing tortillas (using the sea water to mix the flour) and cooking them on a wood burning tortilla oven in one of the palapa homes. The ceviche was made by cutting up the fresh stingray, adding lime which cooks the stingray meat through a natural acidic reaction, then adding tomatoes, onions and cilantro. He made sure the pop was cold and was quite happy (if not proud) to show off his culinary art of ceviche. It was fantastic. More delicious then could be imagined. Who thought stingray could taste so good... honestly!!!!

After lunch we headed back to the boat wondering what's next on the list of building adventures?

Lela

.

(top of page)