Habitat for Humanity

Yes, he's wearing a lady's one-piece swimsuit over his clothes.

Why? Well, I guess this young man thought it was an appropriately colorful outfit for celebration. And it was a good day to celebrate. The Americans, as part of the Interfaith Day of Community Service, were arriving with Habitat for Humanity to help build houses in their village.

Here are the Priest and Iman working together to build a wall. How interfaith is that? Turns out the Iman is quite the mason.
Here is swimsuit guy helping out at the brick-making area. Along with the Americans, the local embassy staff, and our invited interfaith guests, the villagers helped out too.

The rear view.

Here I am carrying a brick. I had to get up at 5:45, to get to the embassy at 6:30. We left at 7:00 and the drive to the village took almost three hours. That's a long way of saying I couldn't get my contacts in. So, I had to wear glasses. So, I had to wear a hat.
I have yet to meet a camera-shy child in Cote d'Ivoire.

They'll just hop right into the picture with you. The man on the right in the red hard hat runs Habitat for Humanity in Cote d'Ivoire. He learned about it on a trip to the United States, then came back and started the chapter here. It's been highly successful.

Afterwards, we had lunch at the Chief's. He has a very, very nice house. We brought some food and the villagers brought some, and everyone had a good time. I made 150 snickerdoodles. They were a big hit.

This was one of my best days in Cote d'Ivoire. I worked really hard on this outing (I was volun-told onto the committee) and it was a blast to get out of Abidjan and into the more typical Ivorian atmosphere. This was my first time in a village, I shook hands with all the important people (I have no idea who they were), applauded the speeches, did some physical labor, and used my sunscreen so I didn't get burned. It was also really fun to hang out with the Ivoirian embassy staff.