Painting Community Building

While in San Juan de Oriente we helped to clean and paint their community building. Imagine heat and oil based paint and I bet you can smell the experience. Chuck, Father D, Stephanie and Tim spent their days on this project with help from others in the town. After the painting was completed, we hung white boards and set up new tables and chairs that we had purchased.

I asked Chuck to contribute to our blog. He viewed my request with a jaundiced eye... for some reason ever since I asked him to take over the Treasurer duties from me ("it only requires two hours per week") he is not very trusting of my requests. I did receive a call of frustration tonight when he couldn't figure out how to sign on. I offered to submit it for him if he'd email his entry. I therefore happily submit the following from Chuck.

Susan

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I have been asked to blog about my painting experience in Nicaragua. I know nothing about blogs, but I do know something about painting. I know it is probably the only real manual labor I could actually do and not cause harm to myself or others. As I approached the job at hand I reminded myself of the Hippocratic Oath, which is first due no harm…

I don’t think I did any REAL harm… okay, okay, I did paint the front posts the wrong color and I did break that one paint brush after a couple of strokes, and well alright I was responsible for the black paint that was spilled on the beautiful tile sidewalk and the side of the building…and yes, there was that one chair I stepped on and broke…I don’t think that Nicaragua has broken off diplomatic relations with the United States…yet.

Oh, yes painting…after all those things, above, I brushed myself off and continued to paint. I must admit that bristled lack of respect that I got but with my meager abilities what was I expecting.

Nonetheless, I was in Nicaragua to change the world one gallon of paint at a time. My contribution was pint sized compared to others who rolled along easily at the task at hand. Some parts of the painting job were up high but I will return to that some time ladder. In the first day we had the first coat on the entire building and in Nicaragua I couldn’t imagine needing a second coat. It was a bright sunny color that we painted the building with contrasting dark trim. The job was the mirror opposite of the church across the park.

Everyone pitched in on the tasks at hand grand or not so grand. I excelled at admiring what others had accomplished and was envious that I didn’t get the chance to paint the back of the door in the room with no light a dark brown. My mistakes would have hardly been noticed. I did paint the trim in this room and next year when you join us for the second mission trip, check out my work -- it is AWESOME. If you don’t go, you won’t know if I am… In case, you can write a much better blog than this…next year.

Chuck