Here I am, sitting on the front patio/stoop of Josue's house writing my blog. Life doesn't get much better! I didn't have the chance to write my blog yesterday and thus some memories have since left me, so I'll combine today's and yesterdays blog to make a SUPER POST!
Ok, let's start with yesterday. First off, happy 4th of July!!! I woke up at 7, as everyone said they did, but found everyone was still asleep. I kind of wandered around the house a minute and returned to my room. I heard people up outside so I went to see what was going on and sure enough they were all up. They asked if I was hungry and, of course, I was...so we went across the street to a house that sells food items but they hadn't opened yet. Same story with a lot of houses! I was very confused how they couldn't be open before breakfast so people could buy food. Later on I was pondering this and realized I watched the sun come up. Steve said something last week about the sun rising at 5. I had made a CRITICAL error. My phone is set to Eastern time still! So what I thought was 7 was really 5 here. Man I felt bad for the family! I made sure to adjust my alarm accordingly:)
After breakfast(which I ate alone because it was so early nobody else was hungry) I was off to the church to lay tile. FINALLY! We dove right into sweeping, measuring, prepping the floor, snapping lines, and mixing mud. I layed the first tile smack dab in the center and then we were off! I layed one side, the men helping were laying the other side. Angela, Blanca, her daughter, and a boy who tagged along were busy handing me tiles while Steve was scooping mud out of a wheel barrow onto the floor for me. One thing we discovered quite fast that the cement here is NOT the quality that it is in the US. Also, with the intense heat, dry concrete, and ceiling fans, the cement dried quite fast. Too fast! We began to soak the floor with water and sweep it around to help with the bonding a little more, sooo, my shoes were completely soaked!
We broke off for lunch break and there is a new store right across from the church and the lady who owns it offered to cook me lunch. Her and Karina, Josue's sister, worked on cooking my meal while I waited up in the front. It was SO funny watching people come into the store, say, "Buena!", and look over and see me. The look on their face was priceless. Like they've never seen a white boy! Haha. Lunch was especially delicious today. I had rice, fried plantain chips, and chicken and a Coke to wash it all down. God bless those hands that prepared that meal!
When lunch break was over I headed back to the church and kept on chuggin along. By now I had worked a pretty good blister on the palm of my right hand from my trowel. Oh yeah, I also broke a trowel handle off that morning...guess I go a little rough for Nicaraguan trowels:P Blisters aside, it was time to boogey. We layed and layed and layed til......WE RAN OUT! OH NO! I couldn't believe we ran out of tile. We weren't even close to being done at all! I was sitting here flipping my lid on the inside but keeping calm on the indide, Steve and I measured the room again to check their measurements. It was then that our translator told us the tile place didn't have all of the tile in stock and were delivering the rest that night. Whew! Relief never felt so good. With nothing else left to do we all packed it up and headed home.
Josue and I went to the hostel to hang out with everyone else, watched a movie in Spanish with English subtitles, and went to Pali(Walmart haha). It was about 8 when I realized maybe Josue was ready to go so we headed off to his house where Karina cooked us a meal and we watched a little TV. I went to bed at 9 since I woke up at 5 and believe me when I say, I fell asleep instantly.
July 5th, 2011
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Have you ever woken up soaked? Not from being hot or wetting the bed...no. I'm talking humidity. Gross right?! I just laughed and told myself, "Welcome to Nicaragua!!!" I walked out and everyone except Josue was awake too. I actually woke up at 7 this time:) I had an omelette for breakfast skillfully prepared by Karina and her sisters. They asked if I was sick which puzzled me. They told me since it was so humid last night and I had the fan running I coughed all night. I did have a cough and running nose so I figured they weren't lying. I told them I'd drop by the pharmacy later and get something to knock it out before it even started. Shortly thereafter we were off again to the church to finish up the tile job.
Remember how I said I had a blister on the palm of my hand? How about 4 next to each other? And remember my soaking wet shoes? I rubbed a blister on 2 of the toes on my right foot. The right side of my body is just taking a beating this trip! Either way I had work to do so I put the pain in the back of my mind and was off to the church. I wrapped a rag around my hand to shield my blisters from the wood of the trowel but it was so annoying I decided the pain was well worth not using the rag. As for my toes, they weren't really a bother. A few times I'd tweat just the right way to agitate them pretty good, but nothing horrible. I was just worried about finishing the floor today! Nothing was going to stand in my way but God himself.
We were laying tile at a rate never before seen by man. I owe this all to the helpers who tag along and help out each day. You guys are worth your weight in gold! We put down all the whole tiles while one man worked on the peninsula that came out of the stage. Cutting the tile around curves is much harder than it looks! We finally got to where we needed to make cuts along the walls and to my surprise they said, 'Well just make the tiles all the same cut and when the wall gets un-square the grout line can get bigger.' I just said 'OK:D' and did as I was told. Much more surprising they would cut a tile put it down then use another piece from that tile, cut another piece, cut another piece... All of the side tiles are jagged and crooked! I'm not a fan of this at all but I wasn't about to argue something at a charity install. OH! The design in the tile is very beautiful, right? Forget it! They said the design won't apply to the sides. So I suggested we broke the tile up and make a mosaic out of the sides, that would give a very uniform look and hide the unsquareness of the room. They said that would mess up the design. As if their method wouldn't.
All that aside we finished today. BOOM! It was only 3 o'clock so I figured they'd be ready to grout and call it done. With so many people it would only take an hour to grout the place. Everyone was ready to call it quits though. Sigh. We put up all the tools and called it quits.
One thing I forgot to mention is that the last tile I layed, a corner cut piece, I wrote on the back of it and asked the pastor to write his name on one side while my name was on the other. I told him later that on the tile I wrote, "From dust we came, And to dust we shall return" and explained that's my favorite verse in the Bible. I can't call the verse right not but it's part of a passage in Genesis that says thorns and thistels will work against you. Sure enough, we had things work against us but we overcame odds like cultural differences, language barriers, horrible cement, and blisters to put that floor in. It was then that pastor Juan told me that people in the church have gotten on their knees and called to God for 4 years to give them a tile floor. FOUR YEARS. To think, I, Todd Daniels, from a little town in Florida, was part of the answer to their prayers. I'm getting choked up in Josue's living room this is getting awkward...
I can't believe God used my talent and passion all the way in Nicaragua to benefit a church carrying out his word. What a story! This has got to be the most meaningful thing to happen to me in my life past being born. Thank you God and everyone who made this trip possible. I couldn't have done it without your love and support.
That's basically it for today. It's Steve's 40th birthday so we're about to head to the hostel to celebrate. I'm eating a cup of ramen and wiping tears from my eyes, thinking about how great our God is. If I died tonight, I would die the happiest man in the world. Right now I feel like I could lay a floor on all 2.5 million square miles of heaven. :D
Thanks for reading/praying!
Todd
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