On our last day of service, our five work sites were reduced to three, and one of these involved working with the people on the hill, helping them with the construction of a house. Left Hall, which this mountainous area is referred to, required a perilous and slow drive up a mountain; working there required hard labor but also involved great people at the top and a quick hike down at the end of our workday.

When a group of us set to work, we were shown where to hammer in nails (pencil circles are lining all the floor boards for us still), and how to hammer them in if we were struggling. We hoped to reduce the local builders’ time by allowing them to do more cutting and measuring while we handled some of the grunt work.

After erecting a full wall in the house and finishing the first floor, we had lunch. We shared our sweets with all the children who came to play dominoes with us before beginning our hike down. Not surprisingly, the kids beat us most of the time!

The neighborhood on the hill was so heartwarming that even after an exciting Black River Safari later in the day, it was the smile on the home owner’s face when she told me the house was to be painted pink and white that stays with me now. Even longer than the smiles of the crocodiles we saw on our safari.

--Jen Kober