Day Three of Community Service

We made good progress today on the beautification project in the school auditorium, but scraping off three former coats of paint is definitely tedious work. Justin Moryto wanted me to point out that he has never worked as hard as he did today. I can´t vouch for his past experiences with physical labour, but I can confirm that he worked very hard today. Another hour of work tomorrow morning and we should be ready to start the actual painting. Tomorrow is our last day at this school, so we really hope to have something positive to show for our efforts. At least we know that whatever we don´t finish this week will be completed by the next group when they arrive. They´ll have the easy task of painting a scraped, plastered, and nicely sanded wall in the auditorium. We´re making better progress in the school library, though. Sandi spent the day in there with Kelsey Boland, Colin Glen, Stephen Townsend and Robbie Williams. They have the walls painted and have now started on sanding down the ceiling (which the principal decided as an after-thought that she would like to have painted. Their efforts are paying off, although the other group will have some final touches to complete in there as well.
Toward the end of the afternoon today we spent almost an hour playing with the kids at the school. This is clearly the favourite part of the day for our boys as well as the children at the school.
We finally received an update from the sailing group this evening as well. They say that the boating is going great. The weather was bad on Monday night, so they didn´t leave until 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday. They sailed for 12 hours straight and most of the boys were sea-sick, but they got over it within a few hours. They docked that day at Ilhe Grande and slept there for the night. On Wednesday they swam to shore and went on a great hike to a beach on the opposite side of the island. Last night they returned to the small village on the island after having dinner on the boat. Danielle says that meals have been fantastic.

That´s all for today. We hope everyone at home is well.