love the wang

my original intention for this trip and this blog was to blog EVERY day while i was in vietnam. and as intentions normally go, it didn’t exactly come to fruition. eight hour workdays in EXTREME humidity tends to cause me to pass out practically IN the shower. so instead i’ll share an email i was able to send to family and friends the minute i got a wireless signal

Hi friends!
 
It’s the end of Day 8 in Vietnam. There is a lot of stories to tell and a lot of pictures to show you. The main points? it’s REALLY hot and HUMID. and we’re making great progress on the house i am building with the teams.
 
The Habitat for Humanity group consisted of 16 people. After we arrived in Vietnam, we split into two groups of 8 people each to build two “love” houses for two selected families. “love” houses are a small sector of Habitat’s international work, which offers qualified families labor to construct houses but requires the family to provide cost for materials. (a larger sector of habitat’s work is building houses for qualified families and having the families repay with mortgage at no interest.) One love house is for an elderly couple who have been sleeping under a structure constructed of wood planks and plastic tarps. The second love house (the one I am assisting in the construction of) is for a couple with two children (one disabled) who have been living in a one-room shack constructed of tin walls and a thatched roof.
 
We arrived with just the foundation set for the house, and now at Day 8, the brick walls for the exterior and dividing walls for the interior of the house are towering over us. We have made exceptional progress through elbow grease, sweat, deet (mosquitos are RUTHLESS) and sunscreen. There isn’t a workday that goes by where the team doesn’t leaved the site DRENCHED in a mixture of mud, sweat, sunscreen, water and deet (and whatever else we’ve put on ourselves.) We’ve split the work up to make efficient use of our time and do everything from transporting building materials (brick, sand, rocks) in wheelbarrow to mixing mortar to laying brick walls to pouring concrete for support columns. It is TRULY backbreaking work (already had 2 massages) but incredibly rewarding. The homeowners and their children work side by side with us and makes this experience really worthwhile.
 
Now….the road is by NO means smooth (and i don’t mean the road we wheelbarrow materials through…) We’ve had team members going down left and right. The first ailment to inflict was a heat rash…which affected three of us. the second ailment to hit was stomach pains (probably from the water and maybe the pho we ate stooped on the side of the street…) that hit like 5 team members. and than there’s me: i have the heat rash, the stomach ailment and i, only i alone, acquired a Ste in my eye. But really nothing some skin cream, Cipro and eyedropes (and giant sunglasses) can’t cure. and today a bug crawled up by shirt and bit me about 4 times on my stomach. But I’m still alive and building thanks to these Vietnamese pharmacies that don’t require perceptions for purchase! *wink wink nudge nudge*
 
Over the weekend we visited a school, a coconut candy factory and we tours a few neighboring provinces including Ben Tre and Canto.
 
Anyhow, it’s been a great experience thus far (ailments aside) I’ve eaten lots of GREAT food and meet a really interesting array of people. I look forward to the rest of my trip and sharing ALLLL my pictures with you upon my return.
 
Love and Misses!

(additional blog sidenote: since the email, i’ve also FALLEN and bodyslammed myself into some marble stairs. and have a giant bruise on the lower left side of my body…)

enough jabber, here’s pictures:

the main street where we enter our worksite everyday.

day ONE: just the foundation and some concrete columns

day THREE: bunch of rookies learning how to lay brick…

laying brick: easy. getting the whole structure to be level: not so easy

day 5: lots of practive makes perfect; janet and i looking sweaty, tired and proud

day 5: begining of the R&R weekend started at a school, thank god i brought my antihestimine for my allergy against children

day 6: they kind of boat like they drive…traffic jam in a canal

day 7: floating market in the Cantho province, the only thing they didn’t sell on a boat was used cars

day 8: end of day progress for the interior of the house

day 8: end of day progress for the extrerior of the house (you know you’re impressed)

lunch everyday is a styrofoam container of rice and a bagged side of meats and/or tofu

our walk into the worksite every: jungle-licious.