After two long and fun days at St. Ann’s Bay Primary School, it was now time to travel to the Edmonson Manse in the town of Alexandria. Before we arrived at the house-to-be for the new minister in Edmonson, we stopped by Reverend Harrison’s home and took in the sights of the “Egypt” farm where we will be working on Friday. It was a rather long drive to get to Reverend Harrison’s house, but it included a van-ride version of “Shark Tank” where the kids came up with inventive new ideas for businesses they could start in Jamaica. As we drove to the house, we went through more windy, narrow roads up steep hills including one that frightened just about everyone but Patel, the driver. It ended up being just fine, but Patel lost a mud flap somewhere along the bumpy roads.
After a short rest at the Reverend’s home, we finally got to the manse. The first of the jobs included sanding the walls of the house with stones from the nearby hill. Once everything was sanded and smoothed out, we gathered more stones to help some of the workers make a cement-like mixture for the stair steps. Others began to paint areas that were going to be the office and garage. At noon, we were pleasantly surprised by a lunch prepared by the members of the church. We had some delicious food that consisted of fried chicken, rice, beans, cole slaw, fish, and chicken foot soup – which was to our delight, surprisingly good despite the name! After an entertaining and informative discussion with Reverend Harrison about his plan for Jamaica and the tasks we will be completing Friday, we returned for the afternoon to paint another room of the manse. As the scraping and painting drew to a close, some of the boys were shown how to use a small jack-hammer to clear out the concrete. Finally, our work for the day was complete. Patel picked us up and once again, and we returned on our long windy drive home. Upon returning to the Cloisters, amazingly, the boys still had energy to play a bit of soccer with some kids from town. It seemed like there were three times more children that came than before! The night concluded with the our daily devotion and card games. On to the next day of hard work!
By Carter