This morning back to a 6am start. I led devotions today, I don't feel that I said what I said how I wanted to say it. I felt that it didn't flow very well. However I hope that the Lord can use it.
Back to work today. Its a good job to wear a cap, not to keep the sun off necessarily but to keep the sweat from running down your face. At the end of the morning my hair is soaking wet as well as the rest of me.
One of Tom's goals whilst we are here is to find and climb a palm tree and get his own coconut! He apparently tried in Africa but failed. He has asked the children where the nearest tree is.
I know I've said it before but Juan Carlos is very good looking, he'll break some hearts when he is older. He has dark brown hair with natural browny blonde highlights. He seems to do a lot of chores into other villages to get shoppping. He travels on his donkey. His younger brother Elito, sister Maria and younger sister Marie-Elena all have the same hair. A lot of the youngsters speak some phrases of English. Alicia/Elizabeth (she says her spanish name is Elizabeth and her Haitian name is Alicia) had her toe redressed today, its not too bad and Rachel gave her some shoes which she was very pleased with.
When we're working with the men on site we get by with sign language. One of the men Willy calls out my name every time I pass him. They find it difficult to say my name, their J's they pronounce as a W or H. So I've become Wholiet.
We were on 2 more houses today filling in with earth. I think we've given up for the moment on the end house as there is no more of the hillside near to cut into. Two of the houses had their windows put in, ready for painting tomorrow. I think the doors are also going on this afternoon. Chris (70) is looking forward to painting. I think he's had enough of rebar. He worked hard the 1st day cutting a lot of it up.
This afternoon we had some training on giving a short testimony. It was based on Paul's testimony/example in Acts 26. I have written mine out but wether I will be brave enough to say it I don't know.
Afterwards some of us went to the market. I've never been in a position before here of being such demanding shopkeepers, they are really pushy. I hate it when you go into a posh shop and the assistants are all over you. From when you first enter the street the storeholders are in your face, "come into my shop", "best prices", "buy one, get one free, like Tesco", "better than Morrison's", "cheaper than Primark", "Asda price". One storeholder asked me to come in and I said no thank you, he asked why not and I replied that I didn't want to and then he kept saying why don't you want to. I felt very rude. I did go in a lot of shops but they all sell the same. We kept losing Andy. Mind you the shopkeepers seem quite happy if you go in and just look around. I did get some good bargains for Kate. It helps to see the prices first in the supermarket shop then you know roughly what to pay. Igot from 1100 pesos to 300 pesos, and 800 to 300. The shopkeepers seemed to enjoy it too.
Two of our lads, Tom and Richard the other day on the way to the internet café got really grabbed. They ended up having their hair braided, but managed to get the cost down to 300 pesos about £5, from 6000 pesos. Fortunately some of us bumped into them and managed to get some photos.
In the evening after supper we played Mafia, which was a good laugh. Lawrence is a good deceiver.
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