Saipan – Day 3

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

We got up at 5 am to get an early start on the day, made our lunches, had some cereal and left the camp at 6 am.

It was still humid but the temperature was a little cooler, a little more overcast and there were frequent breezes, so we were able to make good progress with the roof. We nailed up the rafters installed supports, started nailing on the hurricane straps and nailed down 2×4’s across the rafters so that we could attach the metal sheets to the roof.

There are two sections to the roof and there are different slopes to it, although there isn’t very much slope to the roofs because they are only concerned about rain. The most challenging part was attaching it to the concrete block which was in disrepair.

Even the homeowners grandson, Deffrey helped with the installation. I asked him if he liked doing the construction work and he answered with an emphatic ‘ Yes ‘.

We finished at 3:30 pm and returned to the campsite for our showers and a wonderful meal of fish, rice with vegetables, salad. For dessert we had fresh blueberry pies with ice cream.

With no television, we generally spend the evening in long conversations about many different topics. Don is from Kansas, Ed and I are from Canada and the rest of the group is from northern Arkansas.

Ed Buhler is the site project director and he has been very good at getting us what we need to do the work. He lives near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and he is the only other Canadian in our group.