These past four days, we finally have seen progress on our projects. We have made so much cement that I wish we had given up meals for a week in order to hire a cement mixer truck. We used our amazing masonry skills to place concrete blocks on top of the concrete filled trenches we dug last week. We cleared the grass where the small pond will be and mixed more concrete.
Meanwhile the painters finished sanding and added a base white layer and are now working on a layer of yellow paint. Everything is looking quite exciting!
Some things to note:
Are are projects really worthwhile? It feels like these are projects that our coordinator suggested rather than projects of true necessity. A lot of people are disappointed we didn't end up getting to teach English here (as the original plan suggested) and feel a disconnect from the project
The sexist attitude of the contactor. Particularily in the building group it often feels as though the contactor is quick to correct the girls, letting the guys do whatever they want. In actuality, the girls are just as strong as some of the guys and work just as hard as them. The frustration of this is furthered by the language barrier.
Just over one more week in Quang Tri and then a short stop back in Saigon before heading to Ben Tre!
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
How to Build a Fish Pond
So in the previous post I told you a bit about Quang Tri. Here is a summary of our manual labor so far...
We are working on renovating an elementary school and we have four major projects: sanding and painting the fence surrounding the property, sanding and painting ten classrooms, building a small road that connects the school to the hand washing station, and rebuilding a fence surrounding a fish pond on the property. We have divided into two groups: the painters and the fence builders/small road builders. I am a member of the builders and so this post will focus on that. I will try to get some details about the painting process for a subsequent post.
So far we have spent 12 hours in the blazing Quang Tri sun. I am sunburned and covered in scratches and bug bites. Thank goodness for sneakers and long pants and baseball caps. Yet my arms are a battle field.
Day one we spent the morning taking down the old bamboo fence. You'd think for a fence that is supposedly unstable this would be easy however many of the posts took enormous upper body strength and a movement I liked to call "churing the butter" for several minutes to remove the posts. This was further agitated by large weeds and bushes surrounding us. We then had to stack these pieces of bamboo in several large piles. Swarming with ants and bugs, this is probably when I acquired most of my bites.
The afternoon was spent removing the aforementioned weeds and bushes using very basic equipment: standard garden hoes and sithes. We got down and personal with the weeds and were all exhausted by the end. However we finished the project for day one
Day two we had to building a 20 inch wide by 25 inch deep trench around the entire pond using the hoes from day one, a few picks, and two shovels. These tools continually broke and had to be repaired due to the extremely hard and dry dirt we were working with. This was a pretty painful task and it took the entire day, especially because the contractor told us the wrong place to build one side of the trench and we had to redo it in the afternoon. Morale was a bit low by the end of the day with sore backs and blistered hands. However, we once again finished our task for day two. The sunburn I got on day one did not get any worse but of course I acquired a new one. We all got a bit snappy with each other towards the end, but I think this project will in the end be quite rewarding - we are aiming for a white fence that matches an already existing bridge on the property....and we only have 8 more days to complete the project!
We are working on renovating an elementary school and we have four major projects: sanding and painting the fence surrounding the property, sanding and painting ten classrooms, building a small road that connects the school to the hand washing station, and rebuilding a fence surrounding a fish pond on the property. We have divided into two groups: the painters and the fence builders/small road builders. I am a member of the builders and so this post will focus on that. I will try to get some details about the painting process for a subsequent post.
So far we have spent 12 hours in the blazing Quang Tri sun. I am sunburned and covered in scratches and bug bites. Thank goodness for sneakers and long pants and baseball caps. Yet my arms are a battle field.
Day one we spent the morning taking down the old bamboo fence. You'd think for a fence that is supposedly unstable this would be easy however many of the posts took enormous upper body strength and a movement I liked to call "churing the butter" for several minutes to remove the posts. This was further agitated by large weeds and bushes surrounding us. We then had to stack these pieces of bamboo in several large piles. Swarming with ants and bugs, this is probably when I acquired most of my bites.
The afternoon was spent removing the aforementioned weeds and bushes using very basic equipment: standard garden hoes and sithes. We got down and personal with the weeds and were all exhausted by the end. However we finished the project for day one
Day two we had to building a 20 inch wide by 25 inch deep trench around the entire pond using the hoes from day one, a few picks, and two shovels. These tools continually broke and had to be repaired due to the extremely hard and dry dirt we were working with. This was a pretty painful task and it took the entire day, especially because the contractor told us the wrong place to build one side of the trench and we had to redo it in the afternoon. Morale was a bit low by the end of the day with sore backs and blistered hands. However, we once again finished our task for day two. The sunburn I got on day one did not get any worse but of course I acquired a new one. We all got a bit snappy with each other towards the end, but I think this project will in the end be quite rewarding - we are aiming for a white fence that matches an already existing bridge on the property....and we only have 8 more days to complete the project!
Engaging Begins
Now you may be wondering at the title of this post..."haven't you been engaging for two weeks," you may ask. The answer quite simply, is no. We have been chilling in Ho Chi Minh City then bonding with Vietnamese roommates in Quang Tri. But starting Thursday we finally began engaging.
A few words on Quang Tri: It is a super quaint town. I think a lot of us like it better than Saigon as it is quieter, less polluted, and just more homey feeling. That said, half the days there are blackouts and there is no wireless in our guest houses and it's super hot and buggy. I am always sweating...always. But our roommates are great and we've been bonding over cards and games and questions about relationships and differences between American and Vietnam and riding our bikes together and swimming and eating together. One huge difference between here and Saigon is that the white kids get stared at. All. the. time. We are told we are beautiful and tall and funny looking and fat and we are poked and shouted "Me" at (this means American in Vietnamese and is spelled My with an accent over the y) or "Hello" or "What is Your Name?" It's rather surprising because staring here seems to be far from offensive where as in America we are taught not to stare. I guess we are pretty strange looking. Brown curly hair? Unheard of. Six feet tall boys? Giants! But everyone that we do talk to or that does speak English has been super nice and we've been enjoying sampling Che (a sweet soup) and other smoothies at local cafes (I got one with mangos, avocados, dragon fruit, pineapple, condensed milk, and ice that you crush yourselves).
Tomorrow we will go tour some caves and the 47th parallel to further our education about how this area was affected by the war (we've already seen several museums and citadels and fortresses in the area on a bike tour we took at the beginning of the week). We are all looking forward to a break from the manual labor of the past few days (see next post)
A few words on Quang Tri: It is a super quaint town. I think a lot of us like it better than Saigon as it is quieter, less polluted, and just more homey feeling. That said, half the days there are blackouts and there is no wireless in our guest houses and it's super hot and buggy. I am always sweating...always. But our roommates are great and we've been bonding over cards and games and questions about relationships and differences between American and Vietnam and riding our bikes together and swimming and eating together. One huge difference between here and Saigon is that the white kids get stared at. All. the. time. We are told we are beautiful and tall and funny looking and fat and we are poked and shouted "Me" at (this means American in Vietnamese and is spelled My with an accent over the y) or "Hello" or "What is Your Name?" It's rather surprising because staring here seems to be far from offensive where as in America we are taught not to stare. I guess we are pretty strange looking. Brown curly hair? Unheard of. Six feet tall boys? Giants! But everyone that we do talk to or that does speak English has been super nice and we've been enjoying sampling Che (a sweet soup) and other smoothies at local cafes (I got one with mangos, avocados, dragon fruit, pineapple, condensed milk, and ice that you crush yourselves).
Tomorrow we will go tour some caves and the 47th parallel to further our education about how this area was affected by the war (we've already seen several museums and citadels and fortresses in the area on a bike tour we took at the beginning of the week). We are all looking forward to a break from the manual labor of the past few days (see next post)
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