I got home an hour ago from the Un Techo Para Chile construction this weekend. All I can say is wow. My weekend was full of new experiences...I was completely immersed in Chilean culture and therefore didn't speak any English the entire time. Well, I did once actually but that was only to show my friend how it felt to not understand something, haha. There was even another gringa like me from Washington state so it was nice to have someone who I could check with and make sure I understood what was going on. We always spoke in Spanish though because it is obviously a much more inclusive form of communication. During the construction I learned a lot of new vocabulary words like nail, tape measurer, hammer, etc because I honestly had never had to learn them earlier. In addition to all the new words, I was getting directions to do something that I'd never done before in another language...talk about brain draining. Needless to say I felt a little dumb the first day because I always had to ask for people to repeat things a million times. But, I feel really lucky to have been a part of my specific construction team. They were all really patient and had a good sense of humor, which made it possible for me to turn my lack of understanding into something a little more funny. Another thing that helped was that the leader of our team was someone who I already knew a little through mutual friends. Obviously, I know him a lot better now after working with him in for the past two days. Plus, I was really impressed by the fact that he entrusted me with so many responsibilities even though I obviously was not understanding every word he said. 

On Saturday and Sunday we began construction around 8:30 in the morning and worked till 7ish and ate lunch with the family around 2. Durning that time we got to know them really well. They were full of energy and smiles and were a lot of fun to spend time with throughout the construction. The dad lent me his work shoes, which was funny because they were a tad on the small side...

After we finished our house at the end of the second day, we had our final tea time with the family in the evening. A soccer match between Chile and Ecuador was on so the dad hauled in the TV from their bedroom so that we could all watch it together. As we were leaving it came up that it would be fun to come back and see how there're doing in their new home. I had mentioned a while ago when were talking about how old we were that my birthday was November 1st, and as it turns out that is a convenient time for everyone to meet. So, it looks like I am going to have a very memorable birthday lunch with my construction team and the family in their new home that we all helped build! I honestly couldn't ask for a better way to celebrate.