Dear Long Way Home donors,

The school site has made much progress since I last visited in November 2008.

Today, February 26, 2010 we made significant progress because we hired a backhoe to move dirt around.

From January 2009 until today ALL work on the Tecnico Maya School has been done by hand, without any machinery.

But today, that all changed when we hired a backhoe to speed up the building process. Please see how much dirt has been excavated. This will save us three months of digging.

The crew is very happy about this because they have grown in their skills beyond digging. When I visited the site today they told me that they are thrilled to be learning new green building techniques. They do not want to go back to digging. Onward with tire packing and more challenging work!!!

And our architect, Ericka Temple is happy also. She wrote in her blog today:

"Excavation, excavation, excavation! The first ever LWH bulldozer was hard at work Thursday moving dirt and cutting into the slope so that our building crew can focus on BUILDING A SCHOOL. It was a happy day. Hand excavation has an appropriate time and place, as does calling in machinery – we were thrilled to be able to choose the right tool for the job at hand. The area for the next vocational workshops is now cleared and ready for foundation, and a small platform at the upper level was cleared out to produce enough dirt to continue with the retaining wall. Eventually the entire upper terrace will be excavated at this same level to create the platform for the primary school classrooms."

Please visit our website at www.longwayhomeinc.org for more updates. Thank you to all,
Elizabeth Rose, President, Board of Directors, Long Way Home

Pictures:

• school_and_backhoe.jpg (JPG)