First Day at Work

Today was a beautiful, sunny day. Granted it was also pretty hot, but I was glad to be out on the work site. Two of the women and I were assigned to dig the hole for a squatty potty. They showed us the cylinders that would go in the hole, so we knew both how deep (about six feet) and how wide (about four feet) they wanted it to be. Our supervisor also told us where to dig the hole. We started digging, and after about an hour of fighting through hard dirt and large rocks, we had something that was starting to look like a hole... or at least the start of one. About that time one of the residents of the home that it was for came to us with an interpreter. I guess it had taken him a while to find one. Apparently they actually wanted the hole somewhere else. We were frustrated, so decided to take a break. After a ten minute break an hour of useless hole digging didn't seem so bad. We tried to think of it as more of a warm up than lost time.

The second hole was actually easier than the first. The ground didn't have as many giant rocks that we had to deal with. After about half an hour on that hole a few native Sri Lankans came and started helping us. They worked like crazy and probably doubled the depth of the hole while we took a five minute break! After that they slowed down and we started working along side with them. After lunch things really got interesting. Right before lunch we had hit the water table. At first this meant that the dirt (mud) and sand was soft and easy to dig out. We quickly discovered that it really just makes it harder because you have to scoop water out in addition to digging the hole deeper. I'm really proud of the two women I was working with. They put me to shame. I have issues with not wanting to get too dirty. They just kept digging and digging and were soon completely covered in mud. I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Fortunately there was still work for me to do hauling of buckets of water and/or mud. At the end of the day today we had probably gotten down to about three feet. That means we're about halfway there in terms of distance. I've gotten the impression that hitting water so soon was unexpected, and for the other holes they have dug they didn't hit water until the last foot or so.

On a side note, we have a women named Catherine working with us. She came with Word Made Flesh just for a six week stint in Sri Lanka. She arrived about a day after us, and ended up getting really sick towards the end of the day today. Please pray for her health to improve. There are so many factors that are working against her: Jet lag, the new bacteria in the environment, working hard in the hot sun all day, etc.

Also be praying for Melissa. She is a very sensitive sleeper and for the most part hasn't been able to sleep for the past two nights. The biggest problem for her is that we get animals coming through our house: rats, cockroaches, stray cats, etc. Temperature issues can also make it hard for her to sleep. She was clearly really worn out today just from lack of sleep. Please pray that she will be start getting plenty of restful sleep every night.