It's now my first morning in Urraco. When I left the airport yesterday, I found that my Habitat group had already left while I was writing in my Journal. I was still able to 'bum' a ride with another group that was also going to the Pro Papa office.

I met up with my Habitat Group after about a 30 minute ride. We had a sandwich (something with tomatoes) and some watermelon juice to drink. We then left for Urraco. The mountains here are just beautiful! While we rode on this pot-holed filled dirt road, I saw many different sites.

I can't believe how many children there are everywhere... everywhere I look there are kids! Most adults ride bicycles... I'm guessing that this is the main source of transportation. The farm animals like pigs, cows and horses roam in the front yards of homes and in the streets. Talking about homes, many of them are already made of cement blocks but the roof systems are made up of mostly of steel sheeting. I've seen some homes that have tires thrown on the steel sheeting, I guess, to hold them down during heavy storms.

The place that I'm staying has windows and screens. We also needed a fan to help keep us cool at night so I'm thankful we have electricity.

The children were lined up waiting for us to play outside of the gate. They remembered many of the workers from last year.... I think that's neat!

Talking about our group, I'm getting to know them all pretty well now. Matt, Tim and Cal are the leaders.

I get the feeling that they are pretty happy that I'm here.

My first night of sleeping was fine. I'm sleeping on a mattress laid out on a floor. There are six guys sleeping in our approximately 10X12 room.

Today we are starting off by having breakfast at Lupe's Restaurant, the same place that we had dinner last night. I've learned that we have all three meals there on our work days.

We will begin to work today and I've heard that we will be mixing concrete... I'm ready!

It's just about dinner time and I've completed my first day. We ended up putting a roof on a home and are getting ready to frame in the windows. They aren't really windows... just wooden shutters that I suppose help shield from the elements. I just showered for the first time here. It felt great! The rain is collected off of the roof and held in a trough up outside the 2nd floor. It is then 'gravity fed' through a ½" pipe coming out of the wall. It's not bitter cold but it's definitely not warm.

I took many photos— mainly of some of the kids. I taught some how to do the 'Pittsburgh handshake'. They can say my name with more of an emphasis on the ending... Da vee!

Other than that, I can't understand anything else they are saying. There is a young boy named Nelson that smiles all of the time. He's very, very active and helped me do some of the projects today.

There is also a little girl that has some kind of a worm in her stomach. Her stomach is swollen and she is the cutest thing. I think that she is about three years old.

We had breakfast and lunch at Lupe's Restaurant. Every meal that I've had thus far has been very good. We ate something today that looked like bananas but tasted like a potato. I just heard some people talking and they thought that is was baked green bananas. I'm going to socialize now.

We walked down to see the river before dinner tonight. It is pretty big and the current is very strong. I was surprised to see two young boys jump in for two reasons... the current and the fact that is has crocodiles.

After dinner, we went to an Internet Café, but the internet was 'down'. There was a 2-on-2 soccer game going on next door and our two Translators were able to play. It was fun to watch a very competitive game.

We came back after awhile and sat to talk. It's 9:00 p.m. now and I'm ready to sleep. Good Night!