Before breakfast on Thursday morning, on my morning walk I continued to see homes that had been abandoned.
But there were also many homes where people had stayed and have done a great job cleaning and restoring their homes and yards.
There were some very nice, very large homes that had been overgrown with vines.
About two blocks from where we were working, I saw the local baseball field, across the street from the local school.
Next to the school, there is nothing left of the basketball court.
The Calzada school looks generally intact, but it is closed - no longer are there enough kids in Calzada to operate the school.
Besides the church near La Pachanga, there is a second church in Calzada near the school.
We stopped work around 11:15 on Thursday, cleaned up and at noon, went by bus to Paisajes Curet Restaurant for an amazing lunch with all the volunteers, some of the families and the staff of the local partner of FCH. They served us family style with large platters of ceviche loaded with octopus, fried plantain, fried meats and more.
Paisajes Curet translates roughly to Curet's views, and there were great views of the ocean below and beyond us, and nice homes across the road.
We then went to a local beach with a bar for a couple of hours - I foolishly neglected to take photos of the bar. The bar sold very nice sangria, a cool refreshing drink after the large lunch we had.
Friday morning, I checked on the progress of the third house - Rod, Mike and Binta worked there all week. The family still lives in the back half of the house where the roof was intact. The team worked on framing and bending rebar for the front half of the roof, front columns for the porch and columns and roof for the carport.
The house where Lynn, Pat, Walter and Joe worked all week (and where Margaret, Don, Doris and I worked part of the week) got a new roof and interior ceilings from a prior crew, was scraped and got two coats of paint on the exterior, new windows, and was scraped, patched and new paint inside.
On Friday, Lynn and I worked on scraping the paint off the walls in the bathroom. In places, the paint adhered well resulting in a lot of work to get very small paint chips, but in places moisture had got behind the paint and it came off in large sections of paint. Here was the largest one - we joked that it was a world record paint chip.
Friday, we took a group photo.
Friday evening, after dinner there was a surprise 68th birthday party for Milagros' sister Ruth, complete with cake and ice cream and singing led by Milagros' brother with his guitar.
Here is a brief video from one of their songs.
On my last walk Saturday morning, I walked by the third house where Rod, Mike and Binta worked all week - they, the other volunteers, the family and staff did an amazing amount of work there - I believe the tentative plan is to have it ready for next week when FCH will rent a cement mixer and next week's crew of volunteers will pour the concrete for the new roof.
On my last sunrise walk, I noticed one area where the old telephone poles are still standing like lonely sentinels and are nearly covered with vines, while the new poles and wires bring electricity to Calzada.
Whatever discomforts we volunteers may have experienced, they pale in comparison to what the residents of Calzada, Maunabo and all of Puerto Rico have suffered through. I have difficulty imagining staying there for nine months without electricity, and yet the residents who stayed always greeted us cheerfully. I hope FCH continues to send volunteers to Calzada and that I can make another trip back see the continued progress.
But there were also many homes where people had stayed and have done a great job cleaning and restoring their homes and yards.
There were some very nice, very large homes that had been overgrown with vines.
About two blocks from where we were working, I saw the local baseball field, across the street from the local school.
Next to the school, there is nothing left of the basketball court.
The Calzada school looks generally intact, but it is closed - no longer are there enough kids in Calzada to operate the school.
Besides the church near La Pachanga, there is a second church in Calzada near the school.
Paisajes Curet translates roughly to Curet's views, and there were great views of the ocean below and beyond us, and nice homes across the road.
We then went to a local beach with a bar for a couple of hours - I foolishly neglected to take photos of the bar. The bar sold very nice sangria, a cool refreshing drink after the large lunch we had.
Friday morning, I checked on the progress of the third house - Rod, Mike and Binta worked there all week. The family still lives in the back half of the house where the roof was intact. The team worked on framing and bending rebar for the front half of the roof, front columns for the porch and columns and roof for the carport.
The house where Lynn, Pat, Walter and Joe worked all week (and where Margaret, Don, Doris and I worked part of the week) got a new roof and interior ceilings from a prior crew, was scraped and got two coats of paint on the exterior, new windows, and was scraped, patched and new paint inside.
On Friday, Lynn and I worked on scraping the paint off the walls in the bathroom. In places, the paint adhered well resulting in a lot of work to get very small paint chips, but in places moisture had got behind the paint and it came off in large sections of paint. Here was the largest one - we joked that it was a world record paint chip.
Friday, we took a group photo.
Friday evening, after dinner there was a surprise 68th birthday party for Milagros' sister Ruth, complete with cake and ice cream and singing led by Milagros' brother with his guitar.
Here is a brief video from one of their songs.
On my last walk Saturday morning, I walked by the third house where Rod, Mike and Binta worked all week - they, the other volunteers, the family and staff did an amazing amount of work there - I believe the tentative plan is to have it ready for next week when FCH will rent a cement mixer and next week's crew of volunteers will pour the concrete for the new roof.
On my last sunrise walk, I noticed one area where the old telephone poles are still standing like lonely sentinels and are nearly covered with vines, while the new poles and wires bring electricity to Calzada.
Whatever discomforts we volunteers may have experienced, they pale in comparison to what the residents of Calzada, Maunabo and all of Puerto Rico have suffered through. I have difficulty imagining staying there for nine months without electricity, and yet the residents who stayed always greeted us cheerfully. I hope FCH continues to send volunteers to Calzada and that I can make another trip back see the continued progress.
Thanks so much for your PR posts Tom. I'm forwarding the link to my Feb 19 PR team so they have a better idea of what to expect.
ReplyDeleteCarol Martin