To give you a little taste of what took place during our nine days in the jungle, I give you this blog.
I, Andrea Wendel, became the master of varnishing. If ever you may need someone to come and varnish your bricks, your doorframes, your window frames, or any other various items of which could be varnished, please, do call me. I will arrive with my pint of varnish in one hand (mind you, that it will be one half varnish, one half gasoline—whether this is really safe or not, I’m not quite sure) and paintbrush in the other.
This all came to be by way of an orphanage and its many needs. It sat among the jungle trees sad and unfinished, longing for a brilliant coat of sparkly varnish, until our bus pulled up. When we came, we poured our love, our sweat, our tears, our songs, our varnish, our paint, our everything, into that building for nine solid sun-up to sun-down days. At the end, it sparkled.
My hands may never fully recover from the claw-like form they came to be shaped in from the hours of can holding and brush painting. My balance, however, has risen to, perhaps, Olympic competing levels by way of the many hours spent dancing around the scaffolding.
But wait, that’s not all. I can also dig. If you need a trench or a large hole for your sewage needs, I am still in the apprentice stages of this trade, but am making strides towards mastery.
And finally, the numerous other odd jobs that I have become quite fond of also include, but are not limited to, the following: painting, sanding, holding stair parts in place while Mark drills and hammers, chasing chickens with machetes (only in good fun, not for the kill), eating a record 7 to 8 pieces of bread in a day, showering in the river, and tracking and smashing numerous mosquitoes inside my tent before bed.
Thus concludes my report of the workings and laborings of my team and I over the last nine days in the depths of the rainforesty jungle. (Still not sure whether we were in the rainforest or the jungle).
Seriously though, we worked hard, accomplished a lot, learned even more about living and working in community, and helped to rise up and orphanage in the jungle. It was a very hard, trying, testing week, but we saw much fruit come from our labor.
