After a week of preparation, I finally managed to get everything for this much anticipated trip. I have never done anything remotely like this before and really did not know what to expect. But then again I just prayed to the Lord for His guidance and of course asking all our brothers and sisters to pray for us as well.
We gathered at Changi on Friday 4 March. After lots of group pictures and hugs we hurried to board our flight. The flight took approximately 3.5 hours and we arrived in Sri Lanka at 8:30pm that evening. Our First Builder Group coordinator Wilma met us at the airport. She is a tall Dutch lady with a happy disposition. A big van came and took us away to Negembo for the evening. We stayed at a beach side resort. I could hardly sleep; I supposed it’s probably due to the excitement and that pesky mosquito! The next morning at breakfast we had a briefing on what we will be doing for the coming week. We were given plans of the Habitat houses and lots of dos and don’ts while we are there. The place we will be going to is called Hikkaduwa and it’s about 3-4 hours drive south of Colombo. It’s very close to Galle and it’s at the South West tip of Sri Lanka. Our van whisked us away at 12pm and we got stuck in the midst of Colombo traffic. After a good 1-2 hours out of Colombo we could see the effect of the tsunami along the coast. It’s amazing how nature can both create and destroy so much. There are some areas where everything is wiped out but then there are places where nothing has been touched. As we got closer to our final destination we could see lots of tents and temporary shelters and the devastation became a reality before our eyes. I could not help but think what some of these people were doing when the tsunami hit on that fateful 26 December morning. My heart was heavy but then it made me even more determined to do something.
Our “home” for the next week is called the Moon Beam Hotel, a nice little guest house right on the beach. It’s quite amazing how several guest houses before and after the Moon Beam have been destroyed while our guest house looked like business as usual. The manager told us that they were quite lucky. The tsunami took their bar/restaurant and only damaged one guest room on the ground floor. It didn’t take them long to re-build. We unpacked our bags then gathered to meet with the Habitat coordinator for Galle Mr. Rajiv. He is an affable man with a distinguish mustache. He welcomed us and gave us a quick briefing. He told us the plan for Sunday is to visit the site that we will be building on and then to visit some Habitat houses to show us the finished product. I had a great night sleep. The bed was hard and the pillow was lumpy but I was simply too exhausted to care.
Sunday 6 March, Mr. Rajiv picked us up at 9am. The site was only 10 minutes from the guest house. Since the tsunami, the Sri Lanka government has mandated that no houses can be built within 100 meters from shore. The site that has been assigned to us is approximately 500 meters inland and behind the railway. We walked pass debris and half standing houses but yet the villagers that we saw all had smile on their faces and were very friendly toward strangers. As we got to the site we were greeted with lots of children and the village leader. He is a young man probably in his mid to late 20s. Mr. Rajiv showed us where the houses will be built. The houses are made up of 2 rooms with the sitting and dinning room at 8’6” x 13’8” and the other room at 8’ x 10’4”. There is a possibility to expand with another room at 8’ x 14’4”. Most of the sites have been cleared and one of the sites has even started outlining the foundation. We were all very excited and couldn’t wait to get our hands dirty. After the site visit we went further to Galle to see the finished Habitat house. As we got there we met up with a young American chap. He has been in Sri Lanka for a good month and a half already. He is there on his own but has been helping the villagers to re-build their homes. I admired his enthusiasm and kindness. We also saw a dedicated area where they plan to build a pre-school. The rest of the day was quite relaxing but we were all really pumped up about the challenges we would face the following week.
Monday morning 7 March, we got up bright and early and had a hearty breakfast. The bus was late but managed to pick us up at 8:30am. As we arrived at the site we started to volunteer to work on different homes. There were 4 sites with 5 houses with one site consists of 2 houses. The first thing our team of 3 (Amy, Brian and I) had to do was to uproot a small tree and clear the debris. It took us maybe a good 30minutes and it was quite exhausting. The site supervisor then came over and marked the area where we had to dig the trenches for the foundation. The tools were not in the best condition but we all made do with what we have. The digging was much harder than any exercise I had done. I immediately gained a lot of respect for those construction workers! After a morning of digging, we seemed to barely scratch the surface and the sun was beating down relentlessly. We finally break for lunch at 12pm and the soggy cheese and tomato sandwich and oily French fries never tasted better! When we returned to our site we were surprised with a nice canopy made of a tent that shaded our work area. Other teams have also come over to help us since they have finished with their trenches. The true team spirit broke the soil and the trenches started to take shape. By the end of our first day, all four sites had their trenches completed and 3 of them even had the boulders laid ready for foundation work. We dragged our tired but satisfied bodies on the van and made our way back to the guest house. Tomorrow is another day and the Lord has blessed us with such beautiful weather!
Tuesday 8 March, I could feel my arm muscle stiffen but otherwise the good night rest had replenished my energy. Our owner had decided that he was not prepared to put in the “sweat equity” required so our team went to help other home owners. Today was a day of core muscle work out. We did a lot of lifting and moving of boulders and formed human chains to unload hundreds of cement bricks. The masons also arrived today to lay the foundation for the houses. One of our team mates became the cement mixer’s apprentice! Our lunch was the same soggy sandwiches and oily fries. We were all glad that there were no more digging today since none of us seemed to be up to the task as the heat got more unbearable.
Wednesday 9 March, we were half way through our week and still filled with energy. As we got to the work site, our original owner has finally decided that he really needed to put in some effort and a few of our team mates (Brian, Gary and Kelvin) decided to help him get his foundation ready. The masons were very professional and we were not given much of an opportunity to help with the foundation. Luckily my room-mate (Amy) and I found another very interesting task to do. We were asked to help another owner to sift sand. This is a very important task since this owner is extremely hard working and conscientious and wanted his cement to be made with sifted sand only! Amy and I devised a great way to add a bit of fun to this whole process. Once we placed shovels of sand into the sifter, we used a small coconut husk to sweep the sand continuously in a figure 8. We engaged a lot of our abdominal muscle and made sure we changed side after every 3 minutes! We managed to get a nice neat pile of sifted sand by lunch time. After our usual greasy lunch, I managed to get a new task. This time is to fill the cement between the bricks to re-enforce the wall. It took me a few try before I figure out the trick and I was pretty proud of my handy work. But by 3:30pm I had this uncontrollable sense of tiredness that swept through my body and I had to sit down for a good 15 minutes to regain my composure. I think this is likely due to an accumulation of the physical exertion in the last 3days. Before the end of our day, we had another session of brick unloading. It was a nice end to the day and that is when the Lord gave us a refreshing shower of rain.
Thursday 10 March, I have now officially “adopted” the conscientious home owner. This was also due to the fact that the mason allowed us more chances to help in building the walls. But before we started the day, we had a bit of an exciting episode. The truck that was delivering the bricks got stuck in a ditch at the entrance to the site. With 500+ solid cement bricks on the truck, the villagers were hoping to use sheer brute force to move the truck out of the ditch. Of course the more they struggled the more entrenched the truck got. Finally the villagers decided to heed our advice and we formed a long human chain to unload the bricks. It was at this precise moment as we worked in a rhythm that I realized we are all the same. We are all here with one purpose, to help each other to re-build our lives. When the unloading was done, Amy and I took up the task of more sand sifting. We have now got this task pack-down and were even able to share our “expertise” with other eager team members that wanted to do this balance work out! By now I was ready to do some hard labor. As I watched the mason expertly tied a string to line the wall, he signaled me over to help. I was given the chance to lay the bricks along the line to build the wall. Each brick weighted about 10kg and I did lots of squatting and lifting in the afternoon but by the end of the day, we managed to get 4 layers of bricks for the house. I was utterly exhausted but felt a great sense of achievement. In order to celebrate, I asked to have a fruit platter as my dinner. What a special treat considering we have been having fried noodles/rice or curry with mystery meats!
Friday 11 March, it is hard to believe that today will be the last day at the work site. I got there still filled with energy but also with a sense of sadness. We have not managed to complete the houses. Although we knew the next group will arrive and finish what we started but we couldn’t help but feel that we were leaving things undone. But the sense of sadness did not last long when I saw the mason squatted on the wall we built yesterday. Somehow, I knew the wall we have built will stand the test of time and we have all left a bit of ourselves behind through our sweat. Our team leader Hosea decided that he would also squat next to the mason to proof the strength of the wall. Then Hosea decided that it would make a great picture if I also squatted on the wall and we became the 3 monkeys – “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil”! I plan to frame this picture and put it in my office to remind me of this special moment. After our little fun, it was time to continue with our wall. I became quite good at the task and even got the thumbs up from the mason and the owner. They made me feel like part of the family. We built the walls up to 6 layers and by then I have reached my height limit. It was already 1:30pm in the afternoon and we were getting close to the end of our journey. Our last bit of team work came in play as one more truck load of bricks arrived. With lots of spirit and what is left of our strength, we unloaded another 500+ bricks and called it a day. The last hour was left with blowing up balloons for the children. This task proved far more difficult after 5 days of pure physical labor. At 3pm we waved good-bye to the villagers and ended our journey with far more spirit and much greater hope.
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