Today's work day started out with an exciting find - a scorpion hiding in our pile of concrete blocks! As Amanda was moving blocks she came across the discovery and our Taxi driver moved it out of the pile and out to freedom, but not before we got some pictures of it. It was huge to us, but Tom - a Habitat representative and our comic relief on this trip - told us it was small compared to the size it would become.
Our day today was a bit more low key than usual - again, do to the fact we are up to high areas on the house and not enough scaffolding, we worked in teams to try and keep busy. One group worked up high finishing up the exterior walls (finally done - yeah!!), another group cleaned up around the job site - inside and out. On the inside it was a matter of sweeping up concrete dust and "concrete droppings" and outside was a conglomeration of interesting findings...a lot of trash, old clothing, lighters, food wrappers. Who knows how long they had all been out there, but we now have a very clean site!
The afternoon became a little more exciting...as the "high team" continued wall work, the rest of us were able to mix a new recipe of sand and cement for the wall stucco, which put us all back to work again. Sheri and Sarah were working on plastering an interior wall and VERY instantly learned how little airflow there is inside. They were literally dripping sweat within minutes (see photo) and they both agreed it felt good to be back to our hard physical labor :)
Let us take a moment to acknowlege our team leaders from the Thai side of things - Anne (see photo of her preparing pineapple for us) and Tom. They have been absolutely fabulous and have ensured our safety, hard work and good times throughout these 2 weeks. In addition they serve as our translators with the workers and hotel staff when we cannot find other creative ways to communicate with them :) Their dedication to their work and to volunteer groups like ours is amazing - their work is not like it would be back home where a Habitat office covers a particular region - usually very small. Here, they serve the entire Southern part of the country and spend their time travelling from province to province as their work requires. They are outstanding!
Hard to believe tomorrow will be our last day of work. We will have accomplished our work schedule and the remaining tasks of the house will be left for the family to finish. I'm sure much reflection is to come in the next couple of days as we wrap up here and all head back to the airport for our journeys back home.
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