Day 2 – Saipan – Ralf Hamm

Monday, March 11, 2019

We went to a local diner, called Winchell’s Donuts, for breakfast at 6 am.

It had rained during the night and it was cool in the morning but it didn’t take long it got hot and humid, especially when the clouds disappeared.

At 7 am we headed to the FEMA lot where their housing materials were stored before driving to Miss Tina’s house where we would be working. There was no power to the house and Tina lived in a tent supplied by FEMA until her house was repaired. Unfortunately the tent didn’t have very good air circulation which made it very hot and humid.

After PR, Phil, Greg, Kendall and myself removed the blue tarp and the galvanized steel on the sections of the roof that we would be working on, Harold, Kendall, Duane and Greg discussed the method for strengthening the roof and installing the metal.

Shortly after we started working on the house, another volunteer, Daniel Cavaniri, arrived and started helping Greg and Kendall on the roof, while PR, Phil, Duane and I worked on supporting the rafters and purlins.

With the assistance of Anet, Ed spent most of the day, measuring and cutting the wood and metal for the roof.

Everyone helped in the various jobs of measuring, cutting and installing the roof during the day and overall the work went quite smoothly.

We weren’t accustomed to the hot humid weather, so we drank a lot of fluids and tried to find shady spots ( which were limited ). At 12 pm, Dan Driediger picked up sandwiches from a local shop for us.

By 2:30 pm we had completed the front and one side of the roof.

We were feeling the affects of the constant heat, so we started to pack up our tools and headed back to the hotel.

By 3 pm we were back at the hotel, took showers or went swimming and then rested until our debriefing and devotions at 5:30 pm. A few people took some time for a power nap, but having unsuccessfully tried that before, I opted to stay awake.

We are staying at a very nice hotel this week, which is very different than the accommodations I had in 2016, however, we will most likely be moving to a rental house next week.