My name is Emily Starke. I’m a senior, and this will be the third time I’ve been to Tecate (last year I served in East Palo Alto). I’m really looking forward to devoting myself to more physical labor this week, rather than all of the brain work I’ve been doing to prepare for my upcoming AP exams. I especially love roofing because I really love heights (no, I’m not joking), and I can also see people push themselves to do things they might not have done otherwise. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to sleeping on the ground, especially since every rock in Mexico seems to find its way under my tent! I’m hoping to deepen my relationships with God and my friends, but I haven’t specified anything. I just want to have a firm foundation when I go off to college.
Day 1
Hurry Up aaaaaaaand... Wait
One unofficial motto for Tecate is, “Hurry up and wait,” which pretty much described the entire first day (of course, I wasn’t driving). My dad and I woke up at 4 am and raced to King’s so we could wait for two hours for everyone to organize and move out. Then we hurried the caravan into a line and onto the freeway. We were off to a great start and got a full twenty minutes down the road before someone needed to use the restroom (yay!).
That may have been a blessing in disguise, however, since the early stop galvanized the caravan to make up for lost time. We didn’t stop for longer than fifteen minutes until lunch, speeding through an In-n’-Out before a gas station credit card failure kept us for forty minutes. That also turned out to be another blessing in disguise: it gave us time to decorate the caravan (I drew an ugly pink dinosaur that was quickly upstaged by Andrea’s cute kitten).
Our next stop was Brandon Ghiossi’s house, where we picked up some tools and a solar panel donated by an organization as a pilot program. We spent half an hour wrestling it onto the roof of the car before realizing it wouldn’t stay, so we caught up to the rest of the caravan at a nearby shopping center. Another blessing: the solar panel easily fit in the back of another van (of course).
With only minor delays, we made it over the border before sunset. In true Tecate form, we hurried to Mexico, only in order to immediately begin to wait over an hour for dinner. I guess patience leads to more blessings than are immediately apparent. It can also lead to more opportunities to practice patience.
Day 2
Running Out of Gas (literally and metaphorically)
The first workday in Tecate is usually the hardest. You didn’t sleep well on the rocky ground (or on a mice colony, in the case of one of the girls’ tents). You woke up with the sun, which was earlier than usual, since Easter is so late this year. You had to find all of your tools, all of your cars, and all of your site people before leaving, then drive over bumpy dirt roads in circles, looking for your site flag marked “TKA Site 10” (a new practice this year, thankfully).
Then, praying as a site, organizing materials, and splitting into teams takes at least twenty minutes. Before you know it, 2x4s are being marked, cut, and marked again, and the family is painting the siding for their soon-to-be house. You do run out of gas for the generator—twice. By the time you leave (with all four exterior walls up and an interior one propped up inside, thankyouverymuch), you’re hot, sore, dirty, tired, and ready for dinner. You too have run out of gas.
But besides just exhausting you, the first day exposes your character: your determination, your work ethic, and your cheerfulness in spite of uncomfortable conditions. Will you keep trying to hammer even when the nails keep bending, or will you sit in the shade until someone comes to pry you off the ground? Do you joke and laugh off mistakes (sorry, “learning experiences”), or do you get frustrated when your site leader keeps telling to step on what you’re nailing (I’m doing it now, okay)? The first workday is one of my favorites because that’s the day you really get to know people beyond just their names. Their names start to mean something when you think of them, instead of just attached to faces (or not, so you have to ask for it four times).
The second day is when all of this newfound character gets put to the test.
Day 3
One unofficial motto for Tecate is, “Hurry up and wait,” which pretty much described the entire first day (of course, I wasn’t driving). My dad and I woke up at 4 am and raced to King’s so we could wait for two hours for everyone to organize and move out. Then we hurried the caravan into a line and onto the freeway. We were off to a great start and got a full twenty minutes down the road before someone needed to use the restroom (yay!).
That may have been a blessing in disguise, however, since the early stop galvanized the caravan to make up for lost time. We didn’t stop for longer than fifteen minutes until lunch, speeding through an In-n’-Out before a gas station credit card failure kept us for forty minutes. That also turned out to be another blessing in disguise: it gave us time to decorate the caravan (I drew an ugly pink dinosaur that was quickly upstaged by Andrea’s cute kitten).
Our next stop was Brandon Ghiossi’s house, where we picked up some tools and a solar panel donated by an organization as a pilot program. We spent half an hour wrestling it onto the roof of the car before realizing it wouldn’t stay, so we caught up to the rest of the caravan at a nearby shopping center. Another blessing: the solar panel easily fit in the back of another van (of course).
With only minor delays, we made it over the border before sunset. In true Tecate form, we hurried to Mexico, only in order to immediately begin to wait over an hour for dinner. I guess patience leads to more blessings than are immediately apparent. It can also lead to more opportunities to practice patience.
Day 2
Running Out of Gas (literally and metaphorically)
The first workday in Tecate is usually the hardest. You didn’t sleep well on the rocky ground (or on a mice colony, in the case of one of the girls’ tents). You woke up with the sun, which was earlier than usual, since Easter is so late this year. You had to find all of your tools, all of your cars, and all of your site people before leaving, then drive over bumpy dirt roads in circles, looking for your site flag marked “TKA Site 10” (a new practice this year, thankfully).
Then, praying as a site, organizing materials, and splitting into teams takes at least twenty minutes. Before you know it, 2x4s are being marked, cut, and marked again, and the family is painting the siding for their soon-to-be house. You do run out of gas for the generator—twice. By the time you leave (with all four exterior walls up and an interior one propped up inside, thankyouverymuch), you’re hot, sore, dirty, tired, and ready for dinner. You too have run out of gas.
But besides just exhausting you, the first day exposes your character: your determination, your work ethic, and your cheerfulness in spite of uncomfortable conditions. Will you keep trying to hammer even when the nails keep bending, or will you sit in the shade until someone comes to pry you off the ground? Do you joke and laugh off mistakes (sorry, “learning experiences”), or do you get frustrated when your site leader keeps telling to step on what you’re nailing (I’m doing it now, okay)? The first workday is one of my favorites because that’s the day you really get to know people beyond just their names. Their names start to mean something when you think of them, instead of just attached to faces (or not, so you have to ask for it four times).
The second day is when all of this newfound character gets put to the test.
Day 3
It’s the second day of work, so by now, everyone has given up trying to be clean. The logic is, “Everyone is dirty, so no one is,” or at least no one cares anymore.
Site 10 had a slower day today because all of the steps needed a limited number of people and nothing else could be done until those were finished. The family’s house now has a skeleton roof, windows, and painted walls on top of the walls we finished in the morning. Tomorrow, we’ll put the plywood on the roof first thing, since it’s supposed to rain lightly just before lunch. Hopefully the rain won’t delay the build; we might have even been ahead of everyone if we hadn’t installed the ridge beam upside down! Now we’re “on time,” which hopefully means we won’t be out super late like last year (I doubt it).
We’re also starting roofing tomorrow, my favorite part of the build, so more on that tomorrow night!
Day 4
Roofing
If you hate heights, loathe staying in the lines, or despise relying on (directed) force to solve your problems, don’t do roofing. The previous sentence summarizes my entire day.
We started the day with no roof, of course, but that means nothing except rafters and joists between you and the ground. I watched those get put in; I put in a few myself. I definitely do not want to walk on them. And then you pull a giant piece of plywood onto the roof, lie on top of it, and knock it into place. Or you realize that the board/ rafters/ both aren’t square and keep trying to push it into place while the wind tries to turn it into a sail. After all of the plywood is nailed on, large rolls of tar paper unfurl and are tacked down with special nails, until you run out and rely on the shingle teams to keep up enough to hold the paper down. Then you have to nail a metal trim around the edges (try pounding a nail through metal), and THEN, and only then, can you start shingling, which is where every single shingle has to be perfectly straight, or the entire roof will slant.
Did I mention that I love roofing?
Everyone’s laughing, banging on things (only occasionally nails), and generally enjoying the (relatively) fresh air. My dad and his brother traded “your mom” jokes, ironically enough, and had a full on wrestling match about how to finish the ridge cap (Uncle won, but only because Dad let him).
Thus, our family’s house is now watertight (at least on top).
P.S. - Shoutout to Dr. Rey Henry, our on-site doctor who does an amazing job putting on bandaids (and other stuff too, probably, but I haven’t seen him fix anything more than that). I guess he’s kind of important.
P.P.S. - Rey threw things at me until I gave him a shoutout.
Day 5
La Fin
We finished the house before sundown. My uncle says that it’s the first time in fourteen years that that has happened his entire time in Tecate. He’s very proud. We all are.
We are also very tired from working so hard all week. Goodnight from Tecate!
Well said: "But besides just exhausting you, the first day exposes your character: your determination, your work ethic, and your cheerfulness in spite of uncomfortable conditions."
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