The Ejido School: Making space usable again.
		The start of the day at Maria Antonio Melenrez school in Ejido Lazaro Cardenas. The roof had been damaged, completely torn off in places during the winter rains. We were here to repairt the roof and make the entire building watertight. For a live video look at this day, click here.
		First task was to dig down to the foundation in order to be able to get the tar paper all the way down the exterior walls.
		A crew of men from the ejido had already started the digging process by the time we arrived, but there was still much to do.
		Fernando, a student at the school and son of Jose-Luis and Marcela, who manage our dining room in the ejido helps with cementing the paper.
		Here's a good friend, Lorenzo Calderon, of San Diego, CA, quick on the draw with the glue gun. Besides being a great worker, Lorenzo also introduced us to Dave and Becky Darling of JCR Ministries--a very good connection.
		Pat Claycomb of Yucca Valley, CA burnishing tar paper. This is a serious working-woman. Pat showed up in a pickup truck filled with very large tools, building materials, a gas-powered generator, and her 11 year old daughter. Don't mess with her...
		Teamwork. Ain't it beautiful.
		Pat with Sharon Harris a registered nurse, who's helped many children and their families in our neighborhoods with her medical expertise. Sharon forgot her gas-powered generator that day, but she was still game.
		Time to go aloft. Pastor Dave coming up the ladder for some unskilled labor. All the desks in the background had to be pulled from one of the classrooms as it filled with water after the roof came off.
		Here's the skilled labor: Jim Van Schaack, a general contractor from San Juan Capistrano, CA repairing the roof and building an eves that didn't exist on this side of the building.
		In the midst of replacing water damaged plywood sheets over another classroom, we got a chance to see the desks we'd brought from Santa Barbara Middle school from an unfamiliar angle.
		Picture perfect shot of Jim doing his thing. It was a cool, cloudy February day after the rains. The surrounding hills, usually brown, looked like Ireland that day, covered with waist-high green grasses and yellow flowers.
		Pastor Dave aloft.
		Rick Boshart of Foothills Ranch, CA, also aloft. At this point both our gas-powered generators had lost their gas-power. Did we mention there is no electricity or utilities of any sort in the ejido? We were reduced to cutting roofing nails off the belts for the nailguns so we could nail the roofing paper on manually.
		More of that manual stuff as the sun starts going down.
		Our littlest helper, and the cutest.
		Almost done.
		Ok kids, don't try this at home. Florencio Vera of Mission Viejo, CA learns why you don't stand under the eves when Norm is cementing the roofing paper with that black Henry's roofing cement. All we had to get if off his face was gasoline that wasn't working in the generators anyway.
		Evidence of really hard, really good work.
		Almost full dark. Time to clean it off, pack it up.
		Mike Morgan, an ex-USC football player and great guy from San Juan Capistrano, CA, with Fernando and his father, Jose-Luis, who helped during the day. Mike, as our official photographer, captured many of the stills here and all the video footage.
		Fasting forward several weeks, another crew comes out to plaster the exterior walls.
		Bill Pawasarat, a masonry contractor and his son are in charge today as the skilled plaster labor.
		Once again, all the big power gear is touch and go as the generators come in and out of service taking the water pumps with them. There are no water utilities here, so the water is in the blue 55-gal drums like the one on left.
		Making progress.
		And more...
		More chicken wire going up.
		Norm Kremiller our staff person in the field taking time out with Bill to be beautiful for Mike's camera.
		Jose-Luis and Fernando helping their school once again.
		Nore here's a warm, dry space for learning.
		Good, clean work.
		And those 55-gal water drums have more than one use as these neighborhood kids have figured out.