Un techo para mi pais

I got back the other day from a program called ün techo para mi pais¨ or a roof for my country. We left for 4 days and 5 nights. The idea of the program is to build houses for people in dire need of better shelter. The group I was in built 2 houses along with the families. After construction, the program continues working the families with job training and education. Someone asked me what the most impacting element of the program was. To be honest, it was hunger and lack of sleep. About 80 of us slept in a school gymnasium, in which we were more or less prisoners. We ate 4 meals a day...which sounds great except that breakfast for a Uruguayan consists of a little bread with jelly. Lunch was a bowl of soup. Dinner was a bowl of broth or pasta with crackers. I figure we were taking in about 1500 or less calories a day which we used quickly breaking rock with silly shaped shovels. The sleep...the techo made us stay up until 12 to eat and then afterwards we had group meetings to talk about the work we had done or that we would do the next day. We slept at 1 or 2 and were out the door once more at 7. After the first day, I was just hoping to survive. After the construction, everyone applauded the cooks and the organizers...except me. When we got back to montevideo, I didn´t stay for the closing event, I hopped off the bus and ran my skeleton self home and ate and ate and slept. Now though, I can say the most important thing was the interaction of volunteers and families and the work we all did but during those 4 days, I would tell you it was flour in another sack if you catch my drift.