Too Many Hours with a Wheelbarrow?

Today, after our visit to the Agricultural School, we resumed our task of moving and distributing a large pile of sand. This, as in previous days, involved a lot of shovelling, raking, and most of all, pushing sand around in wheelbarrows. This sand is being used as the base for a concrete pad adjacent to the student dormitory. You can see a photo of this work in the blog entry below entitled Impressed by El Hogar.

Unfortunately, while the distance between the pile of sand and where it needed to go was no more than 50 feet, the pile of sand was on one side of a narrow opening, and the destination was on the other. This is important, because the narrow opening is too narrow for a wheelbarrow to pass through.

We therefore had to resort to other techniques for moving the sand. One of these methods involved loading up wheelbarrows, then dumping them right at the opening, manually shoveling the sand through the opening, then loading up another wheelbarrow on the other side. However, the more efficient method turned out to be loading up wheelbarrows, then letting the guys push the wheelbarrows the long way around the dormitory to reach the destination. As one can imagine, this was tough work, as some uphill pushing with the loaded wheelbarrows was necessary.

It appears that the stress of the work started to take its toll. For example, Mark Taylor seems to have developed an unusual attachment to his wheelbarrow, "Consuela". "Ah, my dear," I heard him say, "you do not yet have enough sand in you. You must be patient until you are full, so that I may push you around to the other side." Mark Biesieda was having an ongoing conversation with his wheelbarrow "Carmen". In fact, both Marks disappeared shortly after supper and we suspect that they have run off to the tool shed, where the wheelbarrows are kept. We are establishing an intervention plan and are heading off to the shed to retrieve them now.