Day Seven

Guest Blogger Mark...

They came, they saw, and with one and a half days left, we had to be close to conquering what was left of building Mrs. Sutham’s house. The day started off with a safety reminder from Felix – insects, hats, shoes and water (especially electrolytes!!).
Luckily today was cooler than most others, given that we had half the roof to finish as well as two walls that were more exposed to the sun than the others. The concrete was mixed, two teams tackled the bathroom walls (which had special blocks for air circulation) while another team handled the remaining back wall.
Felix and Pao welded the last of the roof beams and within about an hour and a half, the remaining roof was up and a cool breeze was felt by all throughout the house…soo nice!! (It was certainly nice to have a monkey in the group who didn’t mind the heights and the swinging from beam to beam – thanks, Felix!) The walls went up quick (now that we all had a few days of practice) and we were running like a well oiled machine – from the mixing to the troweling to the transport of bricks up the scaffolding to refilling concrete buckets…it was an amazing thing to watch!
Some of us were also privy to learning the very strategic game of Pokemon. A bunch of sets of cards were bought and distributed and the westerners were all educated in the card flipping or hand clapping rules. This happened until, as would no doubt be the case, all the local kids had all the cards, having beaten us all soundly. Of course, in their very polite mannerisms, many of the cards were returned so we could try our luck again, and, as many of us observed, there was absolutely no cheating involved. In fact, at times, there was too much honesty (or the kids were taking pity on our poor play;)) and we were all given a chance to stay in the game for at least a few more rounds.
There was also a bit of time to start wondering about the area we were building in, and with our tour guide (Michelle) leading the way (along with a few of the local kids), many of us were able to check out the local hang out/casino/common-kitchen/day-care. It was really neat to see so many people hanging out and sharing their time and food while making bets and caring for each others’ kids. Although my initial thought was that we were disturbing the locals (who wants a bunch of white smelly people disturbing your card game/lunch?) on more than one occasion some of us were asked to sit and try and play or to have something to eat with some of the families. These are such gracious people! There was also a post in this area showing how high the water came up when the tsunami hit in 2004 – 1.5 meters. We were told by Tom and Anne that all of the houses in this area were destroyed when the tsunami came through – wow, talk about a reality check.
Back at the work site, the last of the concrete was being used up as we were once again coming to the end of a very rewarding day of building. The cleaning crew was in full swing and just like that we were back on the bus waving goodbye to Keung, Ae, Pao, Mrs. Sutham and the local kids.
It’s always amazing to see how, even after a full day of working and sweating, all of us are smiling, waving and looking forward to the next day.




Sa wa dee...haaaaaaa