There is no Home Depot, no Lowe’s – no “one stop” hardware or lumber store to buy wood, nails, supplies all in one place. So we took off on the fugonetta and “shopped” around at the multitude of small stores for wood to frame the house, corrugated steel for the roof and various other supplies to finish out Elizabeth’s house. To say it was fun is an understatement. Of course – Jorge went in first to negotiate the price. If Cindy or I were seen then the price rose dramatically. Jorge laughed that we would always get charged the “gringa” price.

 Jorge and Antonio loading posts and boards for framing in the fugonetta. Cindy and I always “got” to ride on top of the boards or whatever building supplies we went to get. At first we thought it was fun and a great treat. Then we realized we were being used to weight down the supplies from sliding or flying out of the cart!

 Once the platform had been built to raise the home off the wet ground, nailing the floor into place went very quickly. Elizabeth started walking on the elevated floor once we had most of it in place. She was so excited throughout the process – at every step she was there watching, helping, smiling and laughing. 
Once the nailing started Cindy and I were “allowed” to do more! Yeah well it was more like we were tired of standing around and watching and waiting. So we started to take over. Go figure!

 

Elizabeth, Antonio and Stephanie looking at the 2×4’s working on the 3rd wall frame.

Since we didn’t have a great deal of tools, we made the best use of what was available. Truly it was amazing working on the house with few tools. In this case we didn’t have saw horses or clamps. I stood on the wood to hold it in place while Antonio manually cut boards. I guess weight does come in handy at times!!! Later, Cindy and I would manually cut the boards for the walls by hand. We used two stools to stabilize the boards and then made over 300 manual cuts

From this point on, the walls and roof were finished quickly. How exciting to see the house taking shape.

Showing Angelito how to use a level. 

Rain showers interrupted our building again so we stopped and waited it out until the next day. We will leave you with some scenes of the flooding caused by these heavy, intense rains. In a matter of 20 minutes, streets and homes flooded.

This home flooded at least 5 times while we were in Pucallpa. I don’t think their dirt floor ever dried out.

This is the street to the side of the church. It overflowed the drainage ditches on each side of the road in a matter of minutes once the rains started.

In His Grip taking cover from the rain,

Stephanie 

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