On Monday, we went to San Miguel to purchase, pay for and arrange delivery of 88 very large tanks. We were pleasantly surprised when they said they could be delivered the very next day! Well, half of them anyway. The other half would come on Wednesday. This was good because we could not get all 88 delivered in one day and we have NO room to store what we couldn’t deliver!
The San Miguel trip lasted 5 hours which includes the 2 hours of travel. Nothing is ever ‘simple’ nor close by here. ;o)
When we got back to Berlin, I typed up the census of families for the first day’s delivery and the Team arranged the local transportation to the community. The store’s delivery was only from San Salvador to Berlin. We needed to take over from there.
The big truck from San Salvador with 45 tanks arrived about 8:15. This was within 45 minutes of when they said they would be here. We were pleasantly surprised! Then Antonio’s truck arrived within just a couple of minutes and we began transferring them for the drive up to San Lorenzo. Antonio’s truck could only hold 18 per trip. So we made 3 trips up the hill. Luckily it isn’t that far. Each round trip only took about 40 minutes. That included the up-loading, the drive to and then the down-loading in the community. There were several men waiting in San Lorenzo to help unload! I love to see a community so ready to lend a hand!
The third trip up, we followed in the pick up so we would have a way to get back to the Pastoral House. We figured there was no reason for Raul and Antonio to stick around while we did the handing out!
Everyone was ready and waiting by our third and final trip up. Otilia said a few words, Blanca spoke and the Directiva President spoke. A few people spoke their gratitude for people who have a generous heart!
And in no time at all we were able to start the name calling for signatures. Using our census and asking people to sign for their gift, we are ensured that we don’t miss anyone! It’s a pretty good system really.
What a joy. And it was so fun to see the people laughing as they lifted and balanced the tanks to carry them home. Compared to other things, they really don’t weigh much considering how large they are. We even had some women plop them on their heads to walk home. Good Lord. I know people start at a very early age carrying things in this manner, but geesh!
This was one day of tank delivery. We had a total of 3 during the week as well as another trip to San Miguel to purchase the final amount of tanks.
18 per trip -
From one truck to Antonio's truck
The BIG truck with 45 tanks from San Salvador
One lady told Otilia that she could not sleep at all the night before! ‘Why?’ asked Otilia … “Because of happiness! I have never received such a gift. I was so happy!”
Everyone is so grateful. One man standing and waiting his turn commented to me: “Son grandisimo!” They are really large! he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment