Almost finished

Well it's Friday and we've almost finished our 2 weeks here in Odessa.

Yesterday we only worked in the morning and after lunch we went to the Black Sea camp for a rest and barbecue.

We had a great time even though the weather wasn't brilliant, it was a little cloudy and the wind was quite chilly.

Today it was back to normal with everyone trying to get as much finished as possible.

So what have we been doing this past 2 weeks apart from barbecue, opera, walks in Odessa etc.

Along with the 2 Igors, who have been working with us, we've :

Chipped, cleaned and bonded all the corridor floors and floors in 7 rooms.

Cut channels in the floors and holes in walls for central heating pipes.

Built and plastered a partition wall.

Plastered 3 complete rooms and the corridors

Built metalwork and plaster boarded the ceiling behind the new wall.

Boxed in pipework.

Constructed 5 door frames and doors

Fitted 2 of the frames and doors into the rooms.

Grouted 6 toilet/shower rooms.

Tiled 5 kitchen walls.

Tiled floors in 5 rooms and grouted 1 of them.

Tiled 2 more toilet/shower rooms.

Drunk lots of tea,coke, sprite and fruit juice, ate loads of biscuits and had a really great time with our friends over here.

So it's now time to complete the final jobs, tidy up and pack as we leave tomorrow morning to fly home. We've had time to build on our old friendships and to make new friends. As always we will leave tomorrow, looking forward to seeing our families but sad to leave such good friends, however knowing, that soon, we will be back to do more work.

There is still more work to be done but the building is now starting to look closer to completion.

Can you help?

Don't miss out, look out for next year's dates and get involved.

Wednesday

There was no wifi here at Transition House on Monday, so it was not possible to blog.

The last 3 days have been much the same as last week, apart from we are now well into our stride with floors and walls being tiled at an amazing pace, the doors are completed and 2 already hung, the others just waiting for tile cement to cure. Grouting continues at a pace as well, with John C now nicknamed 'the Green Man' after taking on a green hue from the tile grout.

Emlyn has been doing a sterling job cleaning down walls, chipping cement off floors for tiling and mixing tile cement. Igor has been catching up with the plastering whilst we have been doing the other work.

Yesterday evening we had  a break and went to the Opera to see 'The Barber of Seville', which was very good, particularly in the setting of Odessa Opera House. We were fortunate to get upgraded to seats in the 3rd row from the stage. 

We followed up with a pizza at a restaurant just down the road from the Opera House

Only two more days to go before we fly home, I'm sure that we will all have mixed feelings, looking forward to seeing family but sad to leave our friends over here.

Sunday and another week starts

Firstly an apology to everyone following the blogs and expecting an update before today.

Things here have been very busy as you may have noticed we don't seem to have had a moment to stop and take stock of what we've done.

Yesterday (Saturday)  we did a half day's work, had a shower and a rest for a couple of hours then went out into downtown Odessa. We went to the open market then walked around and saw the sights, visited some shops and had a typical Ukrainian meal in a restaurant.

Today has been the harvest festival at Grace Church, the morning service was slightly longer at 2½ hours followed by a church lunch outside in the grounds

After lunch we spent some time in the shelter with the children

We then went to an area by a school and apartment blocks where the Church was holding an outreach to the local area, with childrens' games and information for passers by

Time for a rest before bed as our 7am Monday start will soon come round again, we will be continuing with the work, plastering, tiling walls and floors, grouting the tiles, constructing door frames and fitting doors.

For those of you on Facebook check out Rob and John C's pages for more photos.

End of the first week already

Can't believe that it is the end of week 1 already, it's been so busy.

We were out yesterday evening so the Friday blog is a little late. We were invited to go to Alex and Marina's apartment for the evening, where we looked at a video from the start of the children's shelter and photos of the construction of Transition House.

We are working a half day today, so more of an update later.

Progress made despite the heat

We have been making progress, but are finding that working in the heat very tiring, yesterday it was 36 deg C outside Transition House. We are all feeling very drained.

Clive is pleased that his case has now arrived in tact and we're also pleased he has some more clothes!

Yesterday evening we went bowling with some of the children and staff from the shelter, there were 26 of us in total and it was a really good evening.

This morning we had a surprise when Igor who is working with us brought in a lovely cake that his wife had made for us, so we had a piece with our morning tea.

  

We have been continuing to work on the projects that we started on Monday

The partition completed and plastered

Kitchen walls tiled

Toilet shower rooms grouted

Ceiling plasterboarded

Floor tiled

Tomorrow we continue and some of us will be plastering walls as well.

Next blog planned for Friday

First work day down

Today has been our first workday, yesterday we went to Grace Baptist Church for both morning and evening service, we also had lunch and dinner at the church. We all managed to have a short rest yesterday afternoon which helped us recover from our long journey on Saturday.

We had a slow start having a look at the progress made so far (more of that in a later blog, with photos) and getting back into the swing of things. Igor is our 'resident expert', always on hand to direct and guide us through the work.

We started the day carrying tiles and cement up the 2 floors to our work area (our morning workout), then split off to start, cutting channels in the floor and through walls for central heating pipes, wall tiling and building a partition wall in the main corridor to the fire exit, which will help to keep the area warmer if the cold winter winds blow in through the fire exit door.

It's really been hard work today as the temperature has been up in the high 20's and very humid, so we are all feeling quite drained now.

Cutting channels in the floor

Cleaning up the mess

First tiles of te trip going on

The frame up for the partition wall

After a day working here we are all feeling as though we had never been away, it's great to be back amongst old friends and making new ones as well.