Mud

We went to Ciudad Vieja this morning to help out with Eduardo's house (Eduardo is one of the Peace Corps faculty members). We had already been told about how his house was devastated by a landslide caused by Agatha, but it wasn't until we were there, shoveling and hauling buckets of mud, that the devastation was really put into perspective for me. Literally 7 feet-plus of mud had filled the inside of his house, and the entirety of his surrounding property. I don't think I've ever seen so much mud. It was exhausting work, and not necessarily work that my small-framed self is very capable of. But I did what I could, and it was nice to see all the other volunteer workers doing the same.

It was such frustrating work at times; hauling bucket upon bucket and wheelbarrow upon wheelbarrow of mud out of his house and into the street (where big trucks were hauling it away), but seeing no progress, only more and more mud.

It made me think back to a Mother Teresa quote that seems to be circulating a lot in our training: "What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." Each bucket (HEAVY bucket) of mud that we got out of there today made a dent, even if the naked eye couldn't see it...but it sure was an exhausting process to make even that small dent.

On another note, still biding my time and trying to remain patient as training comes to an end. Next week we'll go on site visits to current volunteers and the next we'll do our final teacher workshop and community activity (which should prove interesting after today's meeting with the Mayoress).
One day at a time.