The pencil that made a basketball court

The title says it all. Monday morning we set out to go once again to St. Andrews school and paint a basketball court for the children. There we met a local named Bernard who was to help us paint the court. Before we showed up I tried to grab some dimensions for a basketball court but it was hard to tell what exactly they wanted. Our contact Richard had dropped off a sheet of paper with a drawing of a court on it but it had no measurements just the picture. So we thought we we're on our own trying to figure this one out.

Bernard approached us and we as we walked over to the courts he looked confused and told us he had drawn it all out yesterday, as he held up a tiny pencil. It looked like one of those pencils you get at a golf course, you know the mini ones with no eraser. I found it comical that he had drawn the entire thing out with a tiny little pencil.

So because the drawings he had done had been wiped away by the feet of dozens of children, we had to start all over. Now at this point it was roughly 9:30 AM and it was close to 100° and really high humidity. Needless to say I was dripping with sweat. My water bottle which holds 32 oz was down to a cup left and we hadn't even started.

The ingenuity of Bernard was something to behold. The lines for the court needed to be 3 inches wide so Bernard went and grabbed a 2x4 and macheted the crap out of it until it was 3 inches wide. Then he found a long hose so we could do the rounded lines. It took a few hours and we we're all pouring sweat. But Bernard wasn't joking when he said he drew the whole thing out with a tiny pencil. Around 12:45 we finished painting but we only had done half of the court. It was simply too hot and we didn't want to wear ourselves out for the rest of the day so we called it quits and went to grab almuerzo.

I didn't eat anything but instead sat in front of the fan for an hour and even after lunch, my clothes were still damp with sweat. At 2:00 we headed down to Cornerstone Foundation (Funny name if you think about it) We met with Sofi, one of the staff, she showed us around and I got a chance to check out the computers I'd be working with for the next few weeks teaching people how to use one. They were old but ran fine. I'll be teaching people how to use microsoft office, set up emails, and show them how the basics of a computer. I made an outline for my first class it shouldn't take long and I'll just be introducing people to a mouse and keyboard and get them started on how to type. I found a typing program online that I'll have them do. Hopefully it goes well.