So, I (Rhich) have been reading the blogs of other missionaries and I am now motivated to give this blogging thing another try. I don't have any delusions of possessing any kind of writing talent but, I will do the best with the abilities that I have.
We have undertaken a large project of trying to rehab one half of the duplex for the Kensinger family here at MEDA.
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| Kensinger family serving in Honduras |
Our motivation for this undertaking was to remove the presence of mold and remove some interior walls to allow for expansion of certain rooms and allow more light and air flow within the home. In the process of removing a few walls we discovered the reason for the mold. The top of the footers for the walls were below the surface of the dirt and thus moisture from the dirt was absorbed by the bricks used to construct the walls. They used dirt instead of gravel as a filler. This meant removing all the flooring (ceramic tile, concrete and dirt) throughout the house. We dug out the dirt until it was six inches below the top of the footers and in that process we discovered roots from the large tree in the back yard in two of the bedrooms. Back to the tree in a moment.
The installation of the new floor is still ongoing as of this writing. We installed two inches of "pea gravel" (at least the Honduran version of pea gravel) a plastic moisture barrier, rebar and four inches of concrete. The guys installing the ceramic tile are at work as I am writing this. My participation in this project was the tree that I mentioned earlier.
Normal ficus tree -->I was tasked with removing the nearly forty foot Ficus tree with branches extending beyond the fence and over half the roof of the house. This meant starting at the top and working my way down.
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| about the size of the ficus in the back yard |
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| the beginning of the trunk |
The pictures I have enclosed are the last phase of removing the tree trunk. Since we don't have a stump remover per say, we find ourselves doing it the old fashioned way, axe, shovel, grub hoe and straight bars. One more day of digging and we should be ready to hook on to it with a chain and the Excursion for the final phase of the excavation. Well, that's it, off to work now.
