Sunday 2-24-13

A day of Rest....and some sight seeing. This morning the team traveled 12 Km to the little town of Comarapa. While there we had the pleasure of walking the open market and surrounding buildings, where locals can purchase anything from clothing to meat and produce ( in one of the nicest produce markets, with the greatest selection and variety that I have seen just about anywhere) to prepared foods, house hold items and even cell phones! You could almost call it the Wal-Mart of the Andes. The team had a great time mingling with the local people, tasting new fruits indigenous to this region, and picking up a few souvenirs. We had beautiful ride back through the valley in the bed of the camps large stake body truck. Once back at camp a steak dinner was served for lunch (lunch is the largest meal of the day in Bolivia), a treat for all of us. To show our thanks to the kitchen staff for a wonderful Sunday dinner, a few of the guys on the team jumped in and did the dishes for the Bolivian ladies. Apparently we did such a good job they invited us back to do dishes for them anytime! After lunch some of the team members took a much earned nap, while others walked the grounds and still others checked email and read online versions of the Sunday paper. As the afternoon waned, a group of us lead by our host Tim Ramsey, hiked to the top of the white mountain "Monte Blanco" for which the camp is named. The ridge line ascends over 350 feet above the camps base elevation and affords views that were well worth the hike.

Comarapa

Butcher Shop

Produce Market

Center Cross Roads of the market

The guys do the dishes, nice apron Gene and Matt!

On the truck

Hi Mom, look at all the fruit!

Heading up White Mountain

View of camp Monte Blanco, center in valley, from top of white mountain

The gang on the ridge

Monte Blanco general store

Matt Wilson plays soccer with some boys in Comarapa 

Head Cook Choka teaches Steph a new stitch

As the afternoon came to an end and evening was upon us, dinner was served in the well lit dining hall. After dinner there was time for some reflection on our day of rest and then it was off to church. We only have 4 more work days ahead of us and there is still much to be done around camp. Please continue to pray for our continued success and safety as we enter week 2 of the project and thanks again for supporting us this far! Please also tell family and friends to look at this blog, as of this morning we have received over 2100 page views with a goal of 5000!

Saturday 2-23-13

A busy work day around the camp has brought brighter rooms and more open view of the sky! As the morning started the team fanned out to start on some new areas of the camp, continue some larger projects and wrap up a few others begun this week. Myself along with several of the electricians spent most of the day in attics, tracing circuits and disconnecting and removing the low voltage circuits that are no longer needed. The ladies continued the painting in the boys dorm, finishing most of the rooms, leaving only a few finishing touches to be done next week.   The crew from Steppin Out Missions is keeping pace in the kitchen. The new service panel is now hot and the lighting in the prep area as well as the laundry room is now shining bright. Our linemen spent the day working with the local Bolivian crew, pulling down transformers and removing poles. One pole in particular was rather rotten and the process to strip and remove it included linemen, electricians, locals, a crane and a Toyota Hilux pick up truck. It was quite a process, with men yelling back and forth in English and Spanish, but in the end it was a success. An old eye sore gone and new section of open sky. Over in the central court yard, our team gardener Wayne, was busy making bamboo arch ways over the sidewalks and attaching the shrubs to create even more inviting walk ways in this beautiful garden space.

Morning Sun through the yucca

The precarious pole

Electricians devise a strategy

Mid-morning break  :)

 

The dark section  of this pole is all rotten!

Bolivian ladder

Steppin Out, In the kitchen

Linda mixing "butter scotch"?

Wayne prunes a new arch

Today we Thank God for the safety he has granted our team. We have been working here for week in a higher altitude than most of us are accustomed to, in warmer weather than our bodies are conditioned for, with far less safety equipment and modern construction tools than we normally use. Yet, we have had great successes in our daily work and aside from minor cuts and scrapes we have been free of injury. We also know you have had something to do with that! We know you are thinking about and praying for us and we are grateful to have you along on the journey!

Friday 2-22-13

Well it has been a full week since the bulk of the team left the U.S. and we have completed 5 great days of work. I'm sure if you were to hover above the camp in a balloon the team would look like an army of ants spread across a picnic blanket, determined to complete their tasks! As we near the midway point of the project, visual changes to the camps landscape become more and more evident. The linemen, working with the local contractor, have installed all the new concrete poles and have stripped out most of the old ones that will no longer be used. Tonight, thanks to Steppin out Missions, the dining hall is illuminated with new pendant fixtures and high efficiency CFL lamps. Some of the ladies along with a few Bolivian guys, have completed painting in many of the rooms in the boys dorm, while a few others spent the day sewing curtains  pillow cases and aprons. Let's not forget our electricians, who today tied the main utility feed to the new main panel, installed a new sub-panel in the pump house (where the pump for bringing river water to the camp is housed), and others continued testing, tracing, repairing and replacing outlets and switches in a few of the cabins and other buildings.

Last nights rain drops in the rose garden

Ken and Steve rewire an outlet

Tracing circuits in the oven...um ...attic.

One transformer, DOWN!

Dining hall will be bright tonight!

Sew, Sew, Sew!

John and Gary in the pump house

Me, writing this very blog!

Keith and Tom on the main distribution tower

The team has come together with such cohesion in such a short time, we are able to perform multiple tasks in multiple locations across the camp and it seems as if it was choreographed. Thanks to the thoughts and prayers of all of you following this blog, I know the next week will bring more progress, more friendships and the completing of different phases of this dynamic project. I know I speak for the whole team when I say THANK YOU!    

Thursday 2-21-13

When we awoke this morning the big truck with a load of new poles was sitting in the driveway, this would set the pace for the day. Work seemed to progress rapidly around camp and visual changes became abundant  Down in the "conex", or shipping container turned storage shed and pre-fab shop, the guys have all the supplies arranged in an orderly fashion and have been assembling power outlets for the electricians to install. Over in the dining hall the crew from Steppin Out Missions has been busy....new pendent light fixtures are hanging over the dinner tables and a new main panel hangs on the kitchen wall.  The Bolivian contractor who brought the poles from Santa Cruz installed 2 of them by lunch time and worked to remove a few of the old rotten ones. The line men worked in coordination with the Bolivian crew, stripping the old poles of their transformers and wires, and then connecting the new secondary lines to the fresh poles. The ladies working in the boys' dorm finished painting the long hall way as well as a few of the dorm rooms. The new paint looks great and will be very welcoming to the next group of campers. The electricians continued re-wiring cabins and the wood shop, pulling new circuits and changing out receptacles. Down in the generator building, where the main service for the camp is going to be fed, the almost world famous team of Matt and Matt have been working hard to wire the main distribution panel and the automatic transfer switch for the gen set. They hit a little bump in the process due to the generator not being equipped with an auto start switch, but thanks to an email to our good friend John Bennetch back in PA, the guys are moving ahead with a solution. Another material delivery from Santa Cruz for 40 meters of main service conductor and the guys just may have the camp tied in!

Just look at that sky!

New pole on the right , old one being removed on the left.

Freshly painted dorm.

Tom protecting the new underground secondary.

Ken and Steve running a new circuit in the wood shop.

     As I walked around camp today taking pictures and helping out were I could, I made 2 statements to other team members that I think are worth sharing. First was a bit before lunch, I looked at the ridge line to the south and the big sky above and said "how do they make a sky like this in Bolivia, I've never seen it this blue back home", and later in the afternoon while walking across the meadow to the far end of camp I said to Tom, "this day is truly Glorious". It was one of the hottest days so far, but also one of the most beautiful. God has blessed our team in so many ways....with answered prayers, with gorgeous weather, with a fantastic team and wonderful hosts here in Bolivia. We are almost one week in and we all look forward to continuing for another!