Day 3 - 5 Houses down, 4 more to go. Monday, May 25, 2009

Early rise this morning to catch the minibus at 7am to take us to our building site approximately 20 miles the south of Phnom Penh. After an hours drive, we stopped in a remote village of about 650 families bordering a small river.
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The entire section of the village where we were about to work clearly expected us, with about 20 people lined up along the road as we approached the site of the first 6 houses down a muddy path from the dirt road.

After a lot of warm greetings and smiles from the "welcoming commitee", we unloaded all our food, materials (including bandaids and bandages) on a table in the middle of the village, grabbed our hammers and nails and were led by Heng and Tari from Tabitha to the first two houses - basic single room structures on concrete pillars. The frame and roof had been pre-constructed since previous houses built by volunteers proved to be too unstable - so it was up to us to nail the bamboo floorboards and tin walls to complete the houses.

Although basic in style, the houses are nevertheless a huge improvement over the current living conditions, which are on the ground (= muddy and wet) and consist of nothing more than a few bamboo branches barely holding together and a thatched roof. One wonders if these huts will survive the next storm. We were about to make 9 families VERY happy.

Easier said then done, given the humidity, heat and unfamiliarity of our group with hammer and nails. Added all together, it made for long, arduous work, nail after nail, trying to avoid hitting your thumb, splitting the bamboo or bending the nail in the hard wood. While working on bamboo flooring has its advantages (ie cheaper and often softer), it also meant that there were many more nails to hammer than with wider wooden floorboards....all in all on average about 2,080 per house for the floor alone, and another 250 for the walls

But as Janne had reminded us the day before, this was not about us, not about our sweat, not about us being hot and tired. It was about the people we "worked for", so there was nothing else for us to do than put our best smiles on our faces and carry on under the watchful and amused eyes of the villagers and particular attention by the future owners.

We finished the first house quite quickly, with all of us energized and excited, but as the day wore on, the hammer felt heavier and heavier. The nails seemed to bend more frequently and the wood seemed to be harder. We forced ourselves to take frequent waterbreaks, and after finishing almost 3 houses, broke for a lunch of sandwiches (sardines, peanut butter and chocolate spread), gatorade and water.

The afternoon wore on much the same, boards to nail, walls to carry, ladders to move, water to drink, sweat to wipe and pain to suppress (another of Janne's do's: "When you hit your thumb, put it in your mouth, it will keep you quiet and ease the pain".) And just as we were about to finish the last house, a heavy thunderstorm transformed the entire workplace into one big, wet, slippery, muddy area. Luckily we were almost done and after a few last nails, we were happy to have completed our first 5 houses.