Buying Wood

I remember a while ago, during a presentation on his field work in Nicaragua, a certain professor mentioned that you shouldn’t expect to get more than two things done during the day while in Managua. 

I thought about that as I rode the bus home today around 4pm, after a long and drawn out journey to buy wood and tin sheets for bathrooms.

You see, buying wood (or anything) isn’t as easy as walking into Home Depot, loading it into a cart and then packing it up into the SUV (although Sodimac, a South American hardware store, bears an eerie resemblance to Home Depot right down to the signage).  Nope.  First off, in small towns it’s hard impossible to get wood.  Long pieces of 2x4s are coveted more than precious metals.  And you just can’t go to a carpintero (carpenter). Why?  They only work with wood, not sell it. Duh!  So instead, I had to journey out to the regional capital just to get wood for some simple door frames.

I'll give you a play by play of my day, the journey to get wood (heh)….

Starting to Build Bathrooms and Defy Local Belief that Obras CAN Happen

Note: I originally wrote this as an e-mail to a former teacher/current friend who contributed and coordinated heavily to my Peace Corps Partnership Project fund for building 22 dry bathrooms in two small rural farming communities. 

Yo Sav,

First off - Happy Dia del Padre compadre.

I wrote awhile back saying I'd have an update for you in the next week or so, but I'm sure you put on your 'International Development timeline' filter, and a week or so translated to how ever long this time span is.    But the good news is here, sir.  We've FINALLY starting on the bathroom project.  Although the Municipal funds are still in limbo, I decided there was no sense waiting when we at least had some of the money (from the Lebo donation).  We made the bulk purchases and picked them up from the distributor with the municipal dump truck last Thursday - enough bricks/rebar/cement for four units.  Our maestro is currently hard at work laying the first concrete slabs - I'll have pictures later in the week (re-activate International Development Timeline filter).  Like a good gringo, I'm there mostly to walk around with a clip board, providing technical support as needed, as well as a few photo ops.