Getting Started

Purchasing wood for the wall

Building the wall

Saturday evening

What a great group of people today!  By 9AM, 8 students and a gym teacher (Alex) came to school on a Saturday to see why we had come to El Salvador.  Alex went to school for nursing and is now in a M.Ed program.  He is safety conscious and interested in understanding how rock climbing can be used to teach life lessons like trust and overcoming fear.  It was nice to start with just a few kids today since 400 could be quite overwhelming.  Luke and Gabe demonstrated how to use the belay equipment (and how not to use it :P). It was great to see Luke and Gabe practicing Spanish with the locals :).

Belay training for the gym teacher and watching him train a student

Before we came down here, Bobby put up plastic climbing holds into a brick wall.  He purchased a foot deep of foam pads and covered them with tarps.  My job was to fix the belay system. I added an anchor (so that the belayer does not rise into the air when the climber falls), I replaced  the rope with a less elastic version and taught the gym teacher some climbing basics.  The high school kids were very interested in the concept.  About four kids and the teacher attempted the wall.  I look forward to seeing how they will do on a bouldering wall (no ropes, with problems to solve).  After my demo time, I was the worst player in 3v3 basketball.  I warned them, but they wanted me anyway.

Bobby and Armando cutting wood for Nate

So the wall we are building is now 30% complete.  (We are all wishing we had more holds to put on it.) Luke is actively thinking of how to make more out of wood. We went to the local hardware store this morning and ordered the materials list for the bouldering wall.  We bought out their entire selection of 2x4’s and tweaked our original plan in multiple ways in order to be able to buy 90% of the materials that we would need.  Everything was delivered to the school after lunch.  We got a laugh out of the rough cut wood.  Rough is an understatement.  The wall requires 8 separate mini walls to be built (~16 feet by 4 feet) and as you lay down the 2x4’s there is up to an inch difference in thickness between the boards and almost none are straight.  We haven't tried to assemble the various walls yet.  Here’s hoping!  Luke, Gabe, Nate, Bobby, Armando and I worked all afternoon until it was time to go for ice cream. (Armando is an engineer who teaches the digital tech classes.  He was my English student here 7 years ago when I came as a substitute teacher.  :) )

Doing what I can to help :)

Casa la Atarraya serves a poor community in northern El Salvador.  When I came for my first time in 1994 there was a Kindergarten and Pre-K.  I taught English for a month and lived with Bobby and Terry and their three kids.  Caleb had just been born and Jacob was still on the way.  The school has grown incredibly since then.  There are now 400+ kids and the goal of the school is to provide Christian education that includes job training and college prep.  A student can graduate with a diploma in auto mechanics (a developing program), construction, digital industrial design, pre-nursing, etc.  The walls are all local brick and the desks are handmade out of local wood.  A family in the US donates WIFI each month and an American boat building company has made the contributions like a 20+ foot wooden boat for the library and technology for industrial design that rivals US schools.  Various churches such as our own and a large mission organization, Missionary Ventures, include Casa la Atarraya as part of their community.

Checking out the tech department

Luke and I had some time this afternoon to check out the digital technology center, with Armando (teacher).  It is quite amazing. They have 3D printing, a C&C machine and a banner and sign maker.  I asked Armando what the limit was on the size of the banners, as Luke is designing one for the rock wall.  He said, with a smile no more than 50 meters. What? Wow.

So with ice cream and taquitos to top it off, we are tired.  Right now we are all sitting in the living room zoned on various devices: blogging, playing chess, texting and designing banners.  I asked the boys for some reactions about the school since the last time they were here.  Luke says that his favorite part is how open everything feels and that it is more like a college campus.  The school is three times the size it was in 2010.  Gabe says his favorite part is the Hamilton’s new home which was designed by Caleb Hamilton. 

Off to bed at 8:18PM.  I’m beat.  Hoping to sleep past 3:40AM tomorrow (2 hour time difference).