I hurt... everywhere! :)

Today was completely exhausting!!! I was already a bit tired starting the day but it really added up throughout the day. It's a really nice temperature here but the work is never ending. Unlike my other Habitat builds, there is absolutely NO downtime except for the breaks. By the time we get on the site, they already know what we will be doing and we jump right into work. Being a team of four, I also feel like if someone slacks off... it is really noticeable. Plus Dan and Jerry and much stronger and although I try to keep up with them, I simply can't. Sujata brought her 3 1/2 year old daughter to work today and she is the most adorable thing ever! I had completely won her over by lunchtime and spent my entire lunch chasing her around the building and tickling her. She has the most adorable bowl haircut and the absolute most infectious laugh. I couldn't get enough of her!!!! On the way in to Bawana this morning Ray sat with me and we talked quite a bit about leading teams. He has SO much experience leading teams and has been through every imagineable situation. A great mentor to look up to. In the morning, we broke up bricks by using hammers... nothing like getting out a little aggression. We then threw the pieces down into the ditch to create a 1 1/2 inch level. After that we moved the entire pile of bricks that we had moved on the first day back into the house to help when we start laying the walls. I picked up the bricks, swung them over to Jerry who then threw them across the sewer to Amy who caught it and thenhanded it to Dan who stacked them. Imagine bending forward at the waist and swinging your arm up holding a 5lb brick and then when he was behind, it would start to swing back down. My shoulders (and lower back are killing me!!!!). Imagine grabbing a 5 pound weight in each hand and raising them out to the sides (shoulder height) while bent over at the waist... now do that about 500 times. UG!!!! We finished that about 30 minutes before lunch and went to go help the other two teams. They are building side by side and are working on digging out the septic tank. Although I complain about our site being practically IN the sewer... it does make the dirt moist and easier to break up. Their dirt it dry and clumpy. And their site is in the sun. Our site never sees the sun. After lunch, we walked back to our site and on the way there is this deaf girl (about 15years) who Amy noticed on the first day (amy is a sign language interpreter.) and she reached out to me, grabbed my hand and then pushed a paper into my palm. I opened it and something was written on it in Hindi. I handed it to Sujata and she said "she wants to know how you keep your complexion so beautiful and fair. She is asking for your to recommend to her a cream to keep her face like yours." So sweet, I wish I had gotten it back from Sujata to keep! After lunch I had a pretty big headache... the guys went to go help the other site for a bit and when Amy went to go get them, I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of people. With no other team members and no translator... I winged it :) They were all super friendly and they started to teach me how to count in Hindi (I can't remember most of them but two is Du, and nine is no.) When they all came back, the dump truck had dumped off sand, rocks and more bricks. The pile of bricks was about 6 feet tall and about 9 feet long!!!! and about a llock away! We didn't get very far before Lau Sing called us over and said they were ready for the blessing before pouring the concrete. WE stood with the homeowner and Lau Sing said a prayer in hindi. We then poured in the first bucket of conrete (which is hand mixed... just like Ghana... so tiring!). After that, he called us back over and a woman came and lit about 6 sticks of incense. She walked around and put it down in the troughs speaking under her breath. After that Lau Sing said another prayer and then they passed around burfi (a sweet... like an indian cookie). It was AMAZING!!!!!! On the way back from the site, there was more traffic than usual and took us almost 2 hours. Imagine sitting in a small bus for two hours after using your muscles all day! Our only entertainment was when our bus driver cut off a guy on a motorcycle with his girlfriend. The motorcyle then pulled in front of us stopped and walked up to the drivers window shouting. Jerry leaned over and said "wow, I didn't think you could really do anything to piss anyone off here... seems like they are always cutting each ohter off. They debated for about 10 minutes and we were on our way. I was sitting in the back with Ava and we had a great conversation about Politics (Obama yes or no), socialized medicine, psychotherapy, chopping off the tops of mountains, etc! For being so young (barely 18) she is not only brilliant but really socially aware. Both of her parents are psychologists and she wants to be a journalist. She grew up just outside of D.C. in a place called Bethesda. It was a great conversation!! Unfortunately, I was feeling car sick for the last 40 minutes :( When we got to the hotel, I realized that it isn't being carsick :( I've caught something :( The rest of the team has gone out to a bar but I am sitting under the covers shivering:( Hopefully it goes away tomorrow. If not, I will consider taking the antibiotic (yes mom, you heard that correctly :) ). My roommate has been really great and offered me meds. I looked for my IB Profen but I don't see it anywhere... I really hope I didn't leave it in CA! I'll take some tyelenol PM and see how it goes :) I hope you all are well... I absolutely love your comments!!!