Construction has begun

We broke ground on the land today! This is a view of our land from the “road” leading to it. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it’s very exciting that we were able to begin this morning.

The first thing that we need to do is build a cement block wall around the perimeter of the land, and then afterwards we’ll build the house inside. Here’s three of our workers starting to dig the trench. They’re Yuliza’s two brothers and a nephew.

Construction is very interesting because it’s completely manual labor. We don’t have any electricity yet, but we don’t need it, either. As an engineer I’m enjoying learning how everything is built. For instance, they use a clear hose filled with water in order to make two distant points the same height in order to make a wall straight.