Day 7 Morning - Community service in Luquina

Recorded by Henry and Rachel

At 7 am we woke up, and ate a tasty breakfast of eggs and bread, which was surprisingly good. We all walked down, arriving at the work site at around 8 am. Those of us who were early started working, and the rest of the group arrived shortly after. Everyone from the little children to the elders of the village came together to finish the task. 

Similarly to the day before, we started with an assembly line, and the Naya Luquina Tatua (natives of the island). Women once again joined the line and helped us complete the project. 

In order to create the concrete, we needed to use water, sand, and concrete powder. We had many people digging up sand on the beach, and the native women helped us carry up the sand, while we dug up and sifted sand for carrying up. Both the unsifted and sifted sand was used for the concrete. Even the young children came down to carry up buckets of sand. We had another group of people designated to find flat rocks for the top and sides of the road. 

To collect the water, a few people brought down empty buckets and filled them, bringing them back up to where the villagers were mixing the concrete. The villagers had the hardest job: mixing the concrete using shovels. They had to use all of the materials we brought to them: sand, water, and concrete mix. Once they mixed the concrete, they poured it upon small rocks, and used the flat rocks we had collected to create sides for the road, and to top the road, adding variety.  Some of the sudents even got to place the rocks into the cement and tap them down.

After a large chunk of the path was created, it was decided that there should be a section to commemorate this experience.  So we quickly gathered small white and red stones to make the following design in the wet concrete. 

Though we took this picture the next morning you can see just how far the path we helped to build really is!  Every person in this picture is standing on a new walkway

At 1 pm we stopped, and looked at all we had achieved. We had helped the villagers start a massive project, and it truly felt life changing. Our time on the island as a whole taught us about their culture and customs. Being able to see life so different from ours in the city and actually being able to experience it was beyond insightful.