@OtterMeanGreen Thanks for the corrections to my data, and I appreciate your interest in my Cuba trips. I was there last December and will go again in November of this year.
I go down there once or twice a year with groups from my church to help local Cuban Churches with construction projects. We bring money, supplies, and encouragement to the local congregations we work with. I have been going since 2003. At that time the Cubans that we worked with felt like a forgotten people because of the lack of interaction with the outside world. A lot has changed over the last 14 years, but it is still an island unto itself.
While our primary focus is the physical labor of building things by hand in a largely preindustrial economy; my greatest joy comes from the friendships that I have down there. I have seen my friends have babies, children marry, and spouses die, We work with the same group of translators and foremen on every trip. The churches we work with change as new projects are started and others completed.
The church we visited last year should be complete in 2020. They tore down the 100+ year old wooden church structure in 2003. Two men worked for about 5 years on their own to rebuild the building. We started helping them in 2008 and have been back every couple of years. Everything is done with very simple machines or by hand. One year we only drove a bunch of foundation pilings about 20’ into the bedrock with a 1,000 pound hand cranked pile driver. I have “commuted” to work by horse, bike, foot, tractor, and truck bed. The primary builder, Daniel, is a Civil Engineer in Cuba so this by far the largest and nicest church we have helped with.
Attached are a couple of construction pictures along with an obligatory Filson 256 picture. I use it covered with a towel as my pillow for the bedroll.
I go down there once or twice a year with groups from my church to help local Cuban Churches with construction projects. We bring money, supplies, and encouragement to the local congregations we work with. I have been going since 2003. At that time the Cubans that we worked with felt like a forgotten people because of the lack of interaction with the outside world. A lot has changed over the last 14 years, but it is still an island unto itself.
While our primary focus is the physical labor of building things by hand in a largely preindustrial economy; my greatest joy comes from the friendships that I have down there. I have seen my friends have babies, children marry, and spouses die, We work with the same group of translators and foremen on every trip. The churches we work with change as new projects are started and others completed.
The church we visited last year should be complete in 2020. They tore down the 100+ year old wooden church structure in 2003. Two men worked for about 5 years on their own to rebuild the building. We started helping them in 2008 and have been back every couple of years. Everything is done with very simple machines or by hand. One year we only drove a bunch of foundation pilings about 20’ into the bedrock with a 1,000 pound hand cranked pile driver. I have “commuted” to work by horse, bike, foot, tractor, and truck bed. The primary builder, Daniel, is a Civil Engineer in Cuba so this by far the largest and nicest church we have helped with.
Attached are a couple of construction pictures along with an obligatory Filson 256 picture. I use it covered with a towel as my pillow for the bedroll.
