Red Paint White Paint

After a long day of painting, I am here, sitting in the courtyard, just trying to recover from my burns. I don’t feel as tired as I have been recently, and that is probably due to the extra hour of sleep we all received this morning. Waking up after six would have been considered a blessing, but waking up after seven was just phenomenal.

 

 

 

 

After a quick breakfast of eggs, ham and fresh fruit, we jumped on the bus and travelled about 20 kilometers out of Managua to a small town where we were to paint three classrooms of a rural Christian elementary school.

 

We started off just cleaning up the classrooms, and a small group of us went to paint the gate, which proved to take more time than anticipated. The red tattoo around my neck and on my shoulders is a testament to the time spent in the sun today.

Once the gate was done we headed over to the classrooms again, where the second, larger group had already made excellent headway, almost having the walls covered. Very quickly it became very packed in there while we waited for the walls of the second classroom to be prepared. When the walls were done, some of us got on our knees to clean the floors, while others continued on to the next room. This pattern was replicated for the second classroom, and suddenly it was lunch.  

We had some delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, as well as some frozen orange juice. Only after some pretty hilarious acrobatics with our juice, we finally were able to get some out. It, being the consistency of a slushy, was incredibly refreshing.

We quickly powered through the next classroom, and began working on the office, but soon we were out of paint, and out of energy. We were all feeling a little buzzed from the fumes of paint and thinner, but we still felt good after being able to bless the community in a very practical way.

Everyone else seems to be relaxing in the hammocks, so I think I’ll join them.

Lukas