Day 5 – Kamiah

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

We got up around 6 am, packed our lunches, had breakfast and reviewed the plans for the day’s activities.

The church in Kamiah where we are staying ( sleeping accommodations were in the building at the back ):

Our sleeping accommodations:

When we started loading the trucks to go to the job sites, someone noticed that the site directors truck had a flat tire. He suggested that we all go up to the second house to unload the drywall that was going to be delivered for the day, so we headed to the job site, or so we thought.

We drove by the first house and then continued up the hill. After a while, the landscape didn’t look familiar so we backtracked, retraced our steps, took a wrong turn, called for instructions, retraced our steps and we were back at the top and we didn’t recognize anything. We talked to the site director and he gave us the critical information we had all missed. We needed to keep going past the road that went up to the first house and follow it for 12 miles. When we had gone to the house yesterday, we had followed the site director and we hadn’t paid attention. On the bright side, we had a scenic tour of the mountains.

When we reached the job site, we found the truck with the delivery of drywall had been waiting there for 10 minutes. We unloaded the 21 sheets of 4 ‘ x 12 ‘ x 1/2 “, 8 sheets of 4 ‘ x 8 ‘ x 1/2 “ and 16 sheets of 4 ‘ x 12 ‘ x 5/8 “ drywall, which was the most labour intensive thing we had done, but we had wasted 1.5 hours getting to the job site, so once the unloading was done, we continued our different tasks. Carl, Clyde and Richard continued to install the cement siding, Mark installed some baffling in the attic by the porch and Spencer, Braeden and I, installed insulation in the walls and air vents to the attic. In the afternoon, I worked on the porch ceiling and Mark helped me when he was finished installing the baffles.

The house:

Braeden cutting insulation:

Spencer and Braeden installing the insulation:

Carl, the retired phycologist, measuring and cutting the siding:

Clyde, the retired social worker, Richard, the retired owner of a larger tree nursery and Carl, nailing the siding on:

It became hot in the afternoon, with temperatures around 37 C (98 F), but it we had lots of cold water to drink and we all worked in the shade as much as we could.

In all, it was a very good day. We were also privileged to have the home owners stop by with their daughter to see their house. They expressed their appreciation to us for what we were doing and asked to have a picture taken with us. Braeden, Spencer and I, also had the opportunity to have a nice long chat with them. They told us that their family and friends were very surprised to hear that we were doing this work voluntarily.

We cleaned up around 4 pm and headed back to camp. As we headed back, I took some pictures on our way down the mountains. We had some spectacular views of the valley and Kamiah.

When we got back we cleaned up before supper and enjoyed a delicious meal which consisted of roast beef, baked potatoes, creamed broccoli, and a salad. We finished our meal by making our own ” sundays ” out of different ice creams, granola, etc. Needless to say, I never loose weight when I volunteer for an MDS assignment and I am positive that won’t change this week either.