It was so so so so so so nice to sleep all clean in a real bed, however, since we were in the city there were a lot more dogs that butted heads and their barking and howling kept me up all night. We got to sleep in though, well at least until my work alarm went off at 6:45. Kassie and I leisurely spent 10 minutes getting ready and putting our things together, then went up to breakfast. I got the traditionale without realizing it's what Cata serves us every morning- eggs, black beans, tortillas, and fruit. Still yummy though, I love it. We had some time to gather up all our stuff and leave the hotel, so that was nice. We packed in Mincho's truck and got to site about 9:30, not perfect but better than the hotel group last night. Man that was one of the best truck rides I've had so far- we were all standing and I was facing totally outwards so I got to see everything pass by- the flooded rivers (it thunderstorms every night), the city, the mountains, the cows, everything. It was so cool. Also a much easier ride standing up than sitting down.
We got to site to find that there wasn't much for us to do- the masons were still working on their stuff so we painted rebar and sat around for a bit. Kassie and I went over some paperwork for La Tribuna, and soon it grew to us talking with our whole team in detail. Super nice and helpful. The bridge mentor, Nate, gave us a lot of his time, and even though he's a structural engineer he had great questions and helped us out a lot. He's the one who taught us to survey a few weeks back, and so he had us set up, align, and take down the equipment several times in the afternoon to get some good practice in. Kassie and I really improved, so that's promising. Still not as quick as Nate but way better than before.
We took some time around 4pm to teach others how to surgery, hoping that at some point they could tag along with us since we'll need all the manpower we can get. As we were finishing up teaching, Nate calls me over and says he wants to talk to me. He had talked to Dr. Federle and got the ok for a group to go to La Tribuna tomorrow.
WHAT. It was like Christmas!! We weren't supposed to be there for another five days!! I had no idea how we'd get anything done next week with the small amount of time, so this bonus day was a huge gift!! Kassie and i instantly started planning. We decided (with Nate's help) we'd go for more general information, so we'd send people out in the community to document houses, roads, potential pipe obstacles, control points for survey, etc. We also decided to send a team of three out to the edge of La Tribuna to check out the high point of the community and scope out possible tank locations. We planned all through dinner and through the after-dinner games and finally got all set up to rally the troops. We got seven others to go with us, so we'll have two groups of three on the city side of La Tribuna collecting house information and one group of three out in the boonies looking for a tank location. Everyone seemed to be on the same page after the group meeting, and Kassie and I are so so so pumped to get to see our community, even if it's rough data collection. I'm so excited and can't believe it's happening! Yayyyy!!!!!
2025-02-18