Upon the early hours of approximately one in the morning, the dry season ended in San Salvador with a bang, literally! There was thunder and lightning galore. In one of the rooms the ceiling collapsed due to the water pounding up on the roof. As we dragged out lamps, clothes, and furniture as fast as possible the rain continued to downpour where we eventually settled in for the night.

When waking up in the morning we enjoyed a breakfast of “El Salvadorian” (french) toast, papaya and orange juice. Followed by that, we loaded up the bus and began our travel to San Jose de Villanueva to continue painting houses leftover from Monday´s work.

Upon arriving we tackled the first two houses with ease, though in scorching heat, we managed to complete them by lunch. We ran into difficulty when painting the third and fourth house due to lack of supplies, heat and lack of ventilation. Although it was a tough day we managed to complete our tasks at hand. After completing the last house we brought our supplies back to the bus and took out two suitcases of donations. We took these to the first three houses we painting on Monday and gave the families inhabiting them clothing, toothpaste/toothbrushes, and school supplies. The smiles on their faces were priceless which made working in these conditions worth every second.

When we returned to the hotel for the night we found that the employees fixed the hole in the ceiling so we gathered the strewn about belongings and returned them to their proper place. We all cleaned up and attempted to remove the oil-based paint from our bodies for dinner. Some Rotaract members joined us for an extravagant dinner which consisted of El Salvador´s finest pizza. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Barb G. and Thomas