We arrived in El Salvador on Saturday at about noon time.  We were able to visit a lake at the base of a volcano on Sunday.  Today was our first day arriving on the work site.  This year, we are participating in a blitz build. There are about 200 volunteers each day working on about 50 houses.

Our first day was very successful at the build site.  We split into two groups, and we cleared lots, dug out a tree stump (by hand), and began digging trenches for the foundation. John Norton was eyeing some girls from California who were wearing flip flops to the work site because they supposedly lost their luggage in transit.  Dan Flaherty tried to reel the girls in before John could get to them, which resulted in more time flirting than working.  We have a few people on the trip who are petrified of getting malaria, so we tell them everything they do will cause malaria.  After digging out the stump, we discovered a snake which John managed to chop into pieces with the machete we were using on the work site.  Dean Hanno's daughter Emily proved to be a true asset to the team today.  She is fluent in Spanish and dug a trench with the help of Garrett Bates while speaking with some of the families' children.  Brian Duggan managed to break the handle of 3 pick axes today.  We told him to lay off the muscle milk this week.  Billy Bregianos and Marlaina Symanski proved to be true workers on the build site today by working almost non stop.  Overall, it was a great experience.  We are all getting to know each other and pushing ourselves to work harder than we ever thought we could.  We all look forward to another successful day on the work site tomorrow.