Jon here again, with a little more time to give you an idea of what went on today. Right now the team is in the mess hall after a delicious dinner of shreaded beef and chicken burritos. Nathan Harless and I joked saying Baja Burrito had come. The food here has been superb.
Today I wrote about how a team went into La Fortuna, I think Iris will write about that soon. At the bridge site today after lunch we spent a little bit of time repairing our tent that we put up yesterday. It is now fit for a three ring circus! We now have a place we can retreat to if there should be a sudden cloud burst. Panel production continued and painting was started up. This year it seems we have applied lessons learned from last year and the painting has been more productive.
Speaking of lessons learned, the method of pulling cable across the river was improved by using a sturdier cradle for the wire. Also, the actual pulling went faster due to the shorter span. All four cables are up and the walkway cables sag has been set. The handrail cables are stretched, but not set yet. This will come tomorrow with the instalation of small turnbuckles.
The local help here has been great. There is one man who was waiting for us at the site this morning as well as Manual, the teenager who lives in the water project house. There is no job that is beneath the Guatemalans. A local named Jesus (pronounced "Hey-zues" in espanol) watches us diligently and is always there to lend a hand when needed. He helped us pull all four cables across and wraped up the rope for Dr. Gilliam.
Here's a funny story; Yesterday Jesse and I helped the water team out with moving the collection tank acroass the river to Diego and Manual's house. Manual attached a rope to "El Tanke" and wanted to float it across the river. Nathan thought it would fill up with dirty water and sink. So he explained in English his opinion, and Manual smiled and said "Si." Then he would explain to Nathan in Spanish his idea, and Nathan would shrug his shoulders and agree. So Manual started pushing the tank into the river only to have Nathan stop him and the process start all over. What a sight!! This went on for 10 minutes until finally after much deliberation with hand motions and broken Spanish we opted to float the tank down the river. We got the tank to the house safely.

Its been a great time so far. Here are some more pictures that I took:


The Cable Cradle 2.0. Last year we used wood. This was much better.


After Lunch we got the second walkway cable set and the handrail cables stretched.


El Tanke en el rio (Not pictured: a worried Nathan)