Today I was supposed to be on a bus heading back to Puerto Madryn. But today I remain here in Buenos Aires. My visit of 10 days has just been extended for another week. The reason? Too much to do in just 10 days.
The purpose of my visit here to Buenos Aires is that of helping out one of the YWAM bases here in the city. There are three bases in Buenos Aires: the Ituzaingo base, the first and largest base in Buenos Aires where most training schools are run; the Prayer Center, which focuses on working with the government, media, and educational institutions throughout Argentina; and the Counselling Center with counselling and counselling schools, social and youth assistance, and inner-city based ministries.
My work is with the Counselling Center. Ironically all of the staff here are women, yet this place suffers from the greatest need for construction and other heavy physical work. The girls here have not sat back and waited for others to rescue them, but have indeed got in and built, plastered, cleaned, painted, and done anything and everything that they can. Some things however are still beyond them. Plumbing, electrical wiring, building brick walls, adding mezzanine floors, and partitioning rooms all fall in that category. Fortunately there are people who are helping them out in these areas. I am one of them.
Somewhere along the way somebody got the idea in their head that I was a good builder. So they called me to help out in May to build some mezzanine floors for them. Now I am back again to partition the huge rooms and make them smaller to provide more room for the students that are about to arrive for the September schools. We started with just two basic partitions, and things have grown from there. A hallway to isolate one room from another, dividing one room into two which led to dividing another room in two, which has led to putting another mezzanine floor and stairs in, and some brickwork and the strengthening of brick walls, plus plastering the walls already built, adding extra lights to the divided rooms, and cabling everything. There was just not enough time in 10 days.
As a result the verdict was that I should stay until the work is finished. From what I can see that will be another week at least or perhaps more, although only two weeks remain before I fly to El Salvador for my friends’ wedding.
But for now, it is back to work. 🙂
Rob.
