Day two

So I think the first day really wore us out, which is probably why none of us have blogged again yet! There are some great pictures of our first day of work located here, thanks to our Habitat photographer.

We woke up bright and early yesterday morning for breakfast and made it to the build site by 8 am to begin (luckily it's only about a five minute drive to get there). The foundation was in and there was a basic frame around the outside wall, so then our tasks for the day were to finish hammering together the walls, raise them up, and move on to putting up the roof. It was unbelievable to see how quickly the house was seeming to come together already, although the framing of the house is really only the start! By day's end, we had all put in a lot of sweat and hard work into the build, along with Willie, the soon-to-be resident of the house.

After a long day of being broken in to all the construction, we could not wait to sit down and eat dinner! As we've discovered, people in the south LOVE to fry anything and everything you can possibly think of, so most of our meals have consisted of something fried. But you better believe they have been some of the tastiest meals.

We went to check out some of the surrounding area after dinner and managed to fit 17 of us in a van (trunk included!) for the excursion...and I'm pretty sure the van was meant for 10. The locals here really appreciate the work we're doing and especially love having us come in to visit. For lunch today, we enjoyed some delicious BBQ and snacks at BB's Snak Shak. Some of the tasty southern food we had included sweet potato fries, fried green tomatoes, fried pickles (phenomenal!), snoballs, classic po' boys, and more. We'd definitely recommend the caf back in Oaks adopting some of the food!

Today's build included cutting and putting up siding, painting the siding, and preparing the roof and inside of the house for sub-contractors to come in later. Habitat does as much as the work as they can that is considered "volunteer friendly", so those who have never picked up a hammer before can easily get involved. Certain aspects, like the roof shingles and interior drywalls, need the kind of precision that professionals can offer since they are important to structural and safety elements of the house, so they sub-contract those pieces out. While we've made considerable progress (the SEI Blitz Build, as it's dubbed), there's still a lot to be done.

More pictures to come soon. For now, it's off to another local favorite (those who have been on the trip before will recall this place)--Third Base.