Adventures In Ecuador: Minga.

Last Sunday we had our first Minga. A Minga is an opportunity for volunteers and community members to come together and do some manual labor at a house owned by a Center family. The house we worked on was more of a foundation. There were four stories made of cement bricks and the outside walls hadn't been completed. Our first job was moving a large pile of sand from the second floor to the fourth floor using tiny shovels and old rice sacks. I started the morning shoveling and saved the stairs for later. While the temperature was mild, we were all covered head to toe in dirt and sand. Every time I shoveled a scoop into someone's bag, a cloud of dirt and sand came billowing back up. We used old rags and bandanas to cover our mouths but by the end of the day, our clothes were unrecognizable. Even though it was hard work, we were able to make it fun. There's something about intense manual labor that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. We blasted some music and made our way through the first pile in about two hours. Once the sand had been transported to the top floor, we made our way to the backyard where an even bigger pile of dirt and rocks needed to be moved to the roof and back up to the second floor. A few volunteers used a bucket and pulley system to transport the gravel to the roof while the rest of us continued loading up rice bags and walking the cement stairs to the second floor. By mid-afternoon, I had been shoveling for a few hours and my back was on fire. I don't think shoveling would have been so bad if there were normal sized shovels but mine was sized for a hobbit and didn't even have a handle. Eventually, I threw in the towel and picked up a rice sack to join the transport team. Carrying 30-40 pounds of gravel in a rice sack up two flights of stairs in high altitude is about as fun as it sounds. Luckily, by the time I started the trek the job was almost complete so I really only made about 15 trips. After the last pile was complete, we went outside and played some soccer in the street. The ball was half deflated so that made for an interesting game but we had a lot of laughs and it was actually pretty fun. After the final goal had been scored, we rode the bus back to the center and relaxed for the rest of the day.