a toast to Ron Sieg.

today was quite wonderful.

i did not teach. i went to my spanish class first off. after doing half way well with getting the taxi driver there using my obviously steller spanish. i did try and get him to drive down a wrong way..but i regrouped and told him no problem, that i would just get out and walk the two blocks to the house...

the spanish classes are good. freakin overwhelming but good. my teacher is so helpful. we are working on irregular verbs. i am having trouble remembering them. not really having trouble working through the verb tenses or concept of them...just simply remembering them. virtually everthing that is told to me about the language. i understand...but then when it comes to having no paper in front of me, to remember the words is tough.

especially keeping in mind that i have two weeks to try and retain as much as i could about an elaborate topic. if i tried to learn quantum physics in two weeks. the broad concept might make sense,..i may enjoy the lectures...but i certainly would not walk away having retained more than 10 percent of what was told to me...it is a practice thing.

but i then headed to the job site..which is the same as the school site. an hour combi-bus ride up to the outskirts of town. today was cement the floor of a small school building day. i mean small...12 foot by 12 foot. but that is all you could do with such conditions.

they were waiting on the man with the concrete mixer to show up when i arrived. when he did it was a small concete mixer,..not a truck or anything...the engine started like one of those crank engine cars from like a hundred years ago. he got it started and left us to our devices. we used filthy water, cement bags and the gravel that was on the ground to make concrete.

there is one volunteer named andrew from the uk that has been the main construction force at the school. he does constructon for a living in the uk. there was a few other volunteers there to assist. i told him that i worked for a concrete company back in the late 90s. that officially made me the main cement finisher.

he had a thousand jobs..he had to make sure concete was being made properly, pointing folks in the right directions, over see the whole situation and not to slight the idea that he is the only one with a firm grasp of spanish...so everything falls on him....

well, being the main finisher and organizer of when the concrete is laid down was mine.

i would like to raise a toast to one Mr. Ron Sieg. he was the man whos company i worked for and the man who taught me how to finish concrete. although it was with large scale driveway concrete tools, a cement truck, american oranization and he still was the one who did most everything.

today, i finished my first concrete floor in a school building at the base of a mountain in peru with ultra subpar conditions. he was toasted this evening.

Ron past away a couple years ago of lung cancer. he was a good family friend and a wonderful person. he would be proud that such a humble skill to teach was used in such a way as today.

i am very proud of the whole experience. there is something tangible in ariquipa peru that marc ankenbauer made and would not be there if i did not show up to this country. or at least it would not have a nice M in the corner scratched in the floor with a trowel.

to ron,
be well all,

marc