Friday, 7/31/09 - WALLS!

Today we got straight to work on the walls of the house - both exterior and interior. It was a learning day for all of us, as it seemed none of us had mortering experience ! The day was much cooler since the sun stayed hidden by clouds most of the day and there was a nice breeze - it was a very welcome change! Actually, we were all amazing at how quickly today passed.

The brick work today was very rewarding - seeing the walls actually go up was very exciting because the house was really becoming a reality. It was fun to see Jirasek "Sak" - the homeowner - look around a smile periodically (that's him in the top picture) and it just made us wonder what he was thinking. He has been saving money for a long time to try and build his own house and when his opportunity to work with Habitat came around, it must have been a dream come true.

We were able to get four layers of brick done before our workday ended and we are officially ahead of schedule now which is great. A Habitat representative told us today that what we have done in 4 days it would usually take their hired workers about 3 weeks to complete. Having 14 of us add to the workforce of their 5 workers makes a huge difference!

After work we stopped at a waterfall on our way back to our hotel before getting cleaned up and heading out to dinner. Week one is now officially over and we'll have 3 1/2 days left to finish the house next week before our time here is complete. It's so hard to believe how much we have accomplished in just 5 days!

Thursday, 7/30/09 - We have a floor!

Exciting topic of the day is that we have a floor - today was spent mixing and pouring concrete for teh floor of the house, so nothing a whole lot to explain on this one :) It felt very good to see so many layers of our hard work come to fruition in the form of a smooth, solid foundation to this house we are helping to build.


Today was actually only a half day of work. We left at noon to head to the beach for lunch before heading to a local elementary school for a bit of the afternoon. It was such a great break from our regular schedule to get to interact with the local children. They were very excited to see us as well! We spent some time singing songs with them in English and them teaching us some songs in Thai. Before we left, we had treats of chips, candy and ice cream to give them - so great of us to fill them with sugar just before their school day ended :)

Wednesday, 7/29/09 - Words of the day: MORE Concrete!!

We are experiencing a theme for our workdays – everything revolves around concrete and concrete without a big truck with a chute on it equals a lot of hard work! Our entire project for today was to prepare the floor of the house for concrete. This entailed many steps starting with returning to our project from yesterday of moving and breaking up old broken concrete blocks. this project cleared up our jobsite because we cleared two huge piles of broken blocks, but was also a huge amount of work! After all the concrete blocks were in the "house" they were spread evening over teh entire floor. The next step was to bucket hundreds of buckets of sand on top of the concrete blocks. This was done to allow the sand to sift down between the broken blocks and fill the gaps. After the "floor" was completely filled with sand, it was then watered down to help the sand sift down further, then more sand was added until it was a solid layer of sand.

Next step was to bucket and spread gravel over the enture floor, followed by a checkerboard pattern of split bamboo - to act as the rebar. After the "rebar" was in place, every intersection had to be nailed together. It was a tedious task, for sure!

Then FINALLY it was time to mix more concrete and start pouring the slab for the floor of the house. Again more gravel and sand was hauled and concrete was mixed. It was nearing the end of our workday so we only got through pouring the kitchen, which is a slightly lower than the rest of the house. It was so exciting to finally see the floor looking like a floor!

Tomorrow we will work a half day only and will finish the rest of the concrete slab so we will be ready to start laying block for the walls on Friday morning. Exciting stuff - means more concrete to come :)

Tuesday, 7/28/09 - Word of the Day: Concrete!

Today’s heading covers it all. Today involved A LOT of concrete – mixing, hauling and dumping, then more hauling and more dumping…

Today’s projects included three main tasks. One team of people – led by Benjamin – dug a hole 9 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter that is to hold the septic system. When we say dug we mean by hand…with a shovel no machines…in the 500 degree heat…in a hole.

The second job was to carry old broken concrete blocks into the area that will be the floor of the house and then use hammer and sledge hammers to break them up as small as possible. Keep in mind this house is 36 square meters, which means a lot of concrete blocks and a lot of breaking them up. Once that was moving along well we moved towards the final project – more concrete.
Our biggest goal of the day was to complete the foundation work. We hauled bucketfuls of sand and gravel to the concrete mixer, adding the concrete mix and water. We are talking hundreds of trips carrying these buckets – we needed a lot of concrete! As we made each batch of concrete we then halted the concrete mixing process and switched gears to then bucket the concrete out of the mixer and into the foundation. Our chain system worked well with passing buckets from person to person until the end of the line when it could be dumped and passed back towards the fron tof the line to be refilled. It became a very efficient system when we finally got it down right. We stayed late today to ensure the job was done, but it was worth it.

It’s funny to see us on the way home – it’s a very quiet ride in comparison to the morning trip into work. We are all so exhausted by the time we’re heading back to our hotel that everyone seems to be in a daze. The hard work, in combination with the heat and humidity are enough to do a person in!

Dinner tonight was great – we went to a great place across the street from our hotel that is a combo Thai/German food place. It was delicious! One of the other terrific things about this restaurant is that they offer free wi-fi J It is our new favorite stop after a long day of work. With three computer between our entire group the “internet rotation” is working out just fine.

Monday, July 27th – Let the work begin…

This morning started very early for a portion of our group – Jennifer, Ashley, Sheri, Amanda, Diana and Sarah surprised even themselves by getting up at 5:30 for a walk to the beach to watch the sunrise (well, not sunrise exactly – we were facing West – let’s call it a dayrise). It was well worth it! The morning was beautiful – watching the waves roll in, heat lightening flashing through the clouds, the dogs roaming the beach and the daylight come up was amazing. After many pictures, creation of some sand art by Sheri and wading in the water we headed back for breakfast.

After breakfast we all met up – bags in tow – for our trip to the Andaburi Resort in Phang Nga – it was about a 2 hours drive. After those two hours, a few more moments of bated breath while driving and some beautiful scenery we made it to our hotel and had time to explore the area and get unpacked before meeting up with our gracious HFH Thailand hosts for our welcome and orientation. HFH Thailand has been doing amazing work in Thailand in the next 4 years plans to build 1500 more houses with families living in poverty housing. This area we are working was also hit hard by the devastating tsunami a few years ago and Habitat has been a key player in the rebuilding efforts here.

Orientation was followed by a traditional Thai lunch – again it was amazing – then we got dressed and ready to head to the job site. We were excited to see that rather than riding in the vans we’d been transported in up to this point, we are going to utilize the local open air taxi trucks to go to and from the job site everyday. As Anne, our HFH Thailand host told us, they want to support the local services as much as possible. No complaints from us!
The job site is about 35 minutes from our hotel and we arrived there at 1pm for a welcome, introduction to Jiresek and work! Anne served as our translator while Jiresek introduced himself and expressed his gratitude and appreciate to all of us. He spoke humbly and briefly, but it was obvious he was excited and appreciative of this opportunity to move his 8 person family out of his 2 room (1 bedroom) rental house and into this soon to be new, safe, and sturdy house.
Now it was time to get to work! We started with mixing cement for the footers which entailed shoveling sand, cement mix, water and gravel into containers and them carrying them to the cement mixer. Everything is done by hand and hard work and we all realized within minutes that the intensity of the sun and the high humidity made it critical to stop frequently – every 15 minutes or so – for a water break. We were sweating faster than we could wipe it off and definitely jumped right into working hard and getting dirty! After mixing several batches of cement and bucketing it to the already dug footers, we moved on to the task of moving old, used concrete blocks into the foundation of the house, then using hammers to break them up into smaller pieces so that tomorrow we can spread it evenly over the area where the concrete slab will go on top of it. It was explained that we will spread the broken concrete pieces, and then carry sand to pour in and level it off before we will mix and pour the concrete over it all to create the slab foundation. Sounds like a lot of work we will be doing tomorrow!

At 3:45pm it was time for cleanup before heading back to the hotel. Hard to believe we had worked for only 2 ½ hours and we were all so exhausted! Tomorrow will be our first whole day of work and it will certainly be challenging, just as this afternoon was.

The rest of the evening was spent cleaning up, going to the beach/pool, and having dinner - Pizza this time :) Then we all headed to bed to get prepared for along day tomorrow!

Sunday, July 26th – Phuket, Thailand

Well, after much internet frustration, we think we have finally figured out to get online to update our loyal followers on our many adventures! Sunday consisted of our team finally coming together at our hotel in Phuket – Jennifer was able to relax knowing we had all arrived after our respective hours of travel! As we were waiting for everyone to arrive, we were able to explore the hotel, eat, lounge by the pool, swim in the ocean or take a much needed nap. It has been an exhausting few days for us all and we are just happy to have met and begin settling in for our next 10 days together.

As we arrived in Phuket and stepped outside of the airport the response was the same – IT’S HUMID! The thickness of the air and the intensity of the sun is unlike anything most of us have experienced before and it will definitely end up on the list of “biggest adjustments in Thailand.” Something else that was noticed almost immediately is the driving habits! Motor bikes, cars, bikers and motorized carts all share the same roads and the lines painted on the roads dividing lanes seem to be there just for decoration! Many times we hold our breath as we are passing someone on a curve or trying to squeeze between a truck on once side and a motor biker on our other as we proceed to drive down the middle of the road, not exactly in any one lane. It’s been an adventure J

On this night we enjoyed a delicious Thai dinner waterside and this was our first get together as a complete team. Our group consists of a variety of people – ages, backgrounds, experiences, professions – but it’s been amazing to realize how quickly we are getting to know each other.
Tomorrow we will leave our hotel in Phuket and travel to the province of Phang Nga (about two hours north) where we will get settled at our new home for the remainder of our trip. It’s been an exciting and exhausting few days of travel and adjusting and meeting new people, but we are all here, safe and sound and ready to get to work on the house we will build with Jiresek Kumloy and his family! Big day tomorrow!

3 days and counting...

Countdown is seriously upon us now! Some of our team have traveled towards Thailand already, but the majority of the group will be leaving our respective homes this Friday and Saturday to start the hours and hours flights that will get us to our destination of Phuket, Thailand. Looking forward to updating in a few days, after we're settled at our hotel! Safe travels, everyone :)