Building a House

My friend Sergei is building a house on the south side of Anapa. He and his wife Alicia are currently sharing an apartment with another couple from church and are looking to have their own place. I have plenty of free time and, not really knowing jack-squat about building houses, asked him if he wanted any help. He actually said yes, so I met him at the construction site Monday morning. I hadn't seen his place before I arrived. He's building a second story on top of an existing concrete garage with large steel doors. This seems to be a common arrangement in Russia. Pasha from church has been helping out, also, and they started a week before I did. After a 3 minute tutorial on building a cinder block wall I was put to work building a wall. It took me a minute to figure out which end of the trowel to hold, but it went well after that. 5 rows of blocks later things looked alright, but what do I know? I'm just a programmer and tech writer. Sergei and Pasha said the wall looked good, so I was happy. Mixing concrete by hand and hauling it around in buckets is hard work.