Roofing

I was awakened this morning at 5 am to the sound of lots of people in the street.

I am accustomed to get up at 5:30 for some time of coffee, prayer, and reading, but 5 am!

My neighbors are rebuilding their house and putting on a second floor. Part of the process after the first floor is built is to lay a cement terraza  of 10-12 centimeters of concrete. Here it’s a labor intensive job. The maestro de obra (construction supervisor) told me that there were 38 people working – mixing cement, moving cement to the site, pouring the cement and smoothing it out.

It’s amazing and hard work – and the workers included some young kids.

Life is hard here. In comparison, I live such a privileged life. All the more reason to be here and accompany the people in their struggles for faith, life, and justice.

A few photos follow:

Mixing cement

Lifting buckets of cement to the roof

moving the cement to the corner of the roof

buckets full of cement

pouring the buckets for the roof

pouring and smoothing the cement

smoothing out the cement

a smoothed out section of the roof

Added later  - the roof at 5 pm, after all the concrete was laid