“Ron” – My School Visit in Phang Nga: July 30, 2009

Going into today, we knew it was going to be a half day of work with lunch at the beach and a school visit to the local village school. I have obviously been looking forward to this day to see how the classrooms are and see all of the adorable Thai kids!!!

At the work site today all we had to finish before lunch was setting the concrete for the final touches of the foundation. This was a very repetitive day, the usual process times 50! We ended up finishing the entire flooring in about three hours.

For lunch we headed down to the ocean near the build site; it was a very different perspective because it was open water versus a bay. The surrounding area wasn’t dirty per say, but had a lot of garbage around. It is very interesting how littered certain places look – we aren’t sure if it is the weather blowing it around with lack of trash cans…. They burn their garbage in cauldrons out by the street; can you say pollution! Or if it is just still a mess from the Tsunami and it is one of those never ending cycles of clean up.

Off to the school we went – it was very small, only three classrooms for the older children, ages 6-10 and one classroom for the 4-6 age group. There was also a building that was the designated activity, recreation, gym area. The activity room is where we were at half of the time with the children. When we arrived they were all in there and we introduced ourselves to them and told them we were going to teach them a few songs/games. They do not speak a lot English, they are learning so they do understand a few words which was really fun to see what they did understand. We did a clapping game that was sort of weird and hard for them to follow. Next we did the Hokey Pokey which got them and us more involved – it was silly for them “shaking all about!” We also sang Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes; I was shocked because a couple of boys actually helped to lead it and knew all of the words. After we did our thing, a couple of us really wanted them to teach us something, myself included – they sang two songs with funny little motions, one was about an old duck and not wanting to look like the duck. The other was about killing and grilling chicken! Ha They were pretty cute and we did get them on video… I think so I will have to show you!
With all of us raising money for Habitat, our expenses were cheaper than usual and we actually had a little leftover. With that money, we bought and donated to the children sports equipment for them to use at school. They were in need of this and it was so cute to see them because they didn’t really know what to do! We shared snacks and had a keg of ice cream for them to all have an ice cream cone or two! They all lined up and after we would give them the ice cream they would bow and say Kop-Coon-Kah….Thank you….. SO SO CUTE! The little ones, 4-6 joined us for this – they get nap time in the afternoon so that couldn’t be interrupted! LUCKY! While outside when I was done scooping ice cream, we got to interact with the kids and try to talk with them. They treated us like celebrities!! The ten-year-olds had post-its out and pens and were going around having all of us sign them like we did in Disneyland! The boys were SO silly!! I wrote my name and I asked him what his name was, he wrote down Ron. So we went back and forth talking and he asked me to sign his hat! We took a few silly pictures and after I went back to trying to talk with the girls (very difficult having the language barrier). Apparently, as Ron was walking away, Ashley overheard him say, “A-Mannn-Da” in a cute little sigh voice! Haha how cute…. I was also told by one of the girls that I was beautiful and my heart just sank, they were all amazing, amazing kids. As we were walking out a few of them signed to us (including Ron!) I love you!

It is a totally different culture, partly the age I am sure – but the children are very respectful, they listen, they are polite, they are fun, and DARLING!! I am so happy that I got the opportunity to go see the schools over there. Just the little interaction I am sure made a big difference in their day – I know it did in mine!

Later that afternoon, Ashley, Diana, and I made appointments a little massage place across the street. It is quite popular with our group because they offer a variety of massages and they are FABULOUS! Ashley and I decided for our first one to get an Aloevera Thai Massage. This is a more tradition Swedish massage where they massage you from head to toe…. One thing I learned is that they are VERY VERY intimate and you don’t find that in the States. I joked around that afterwards I don’t need a mammogram this year because they are all over the place. I guess that is very common – our leader is a massage therapist in Wisconsin and said in many other places around the world they literally go from head to toe. The price for this….. $10.00!!!! With a tip we ended up paying about $13.00 which is still better than anything you will find in America. A traditional Thai massage, which I am planning on this weekend is more stretching of the body. Several people have done it and it too is very intimate, physically climbing on you, and it feels like Yoga being done for you. Those who have had it done said that it was great and they were a little sore but that was because their bodies were actually stretched out! We will see… the cost for that, $7.50! Crazy, crazy!

Love and miss you all!

Foundation Set…Smiles All Around!! : July 29, 2009

We have gotten lucky and we haven’t seen rain yet! On the way to the site, today felt like one of the warmest days that we have had so far. Upper 80’s right from 10:00 a.m. on. Today we needed to finish the earth base foundation. With all of this, this still took an entire day! The framing looked great, and they were taking off the wood boards along the sides as we arrived.

Right off the bat we began throwing the remained of the blocks and rocks into the frame to fill in the gaps around the side. As we were moving the crushed brick into the frame, there were others leveling it out. All together it was about one foot of brick and rock. The next layer was sand, which we again used a smaller passing system to get more accomplished. As we were throwing the sand in, the Thai men that were helping would walk around with a hose to wet down the sand so it would fall into any cracks that were missed. The sand layer was about five inches on top of the rock layer. Next, we used another layer of the gravel that we had been using for the frame. The house is a rectangle shape so all of this work seems easy, but it is very time consuming getting in to the ends of the house.

When we eat lunch at the site, our host Anne brings large amounts of Thai food in crockpots and sets them for us and we just eat around in the chairs. We also have several breaks throughout to get water and rest since it is so warm… they want to take precautions since our bodies are not as well adjusted to the heat and humidity.

Our last layer of the earth base was bamboo that had been split into four long slices. This took a bit to lay out but once we got to nailing the bamboo together we had a good system down. They were to be placed down the entire house length and width wise to have the woven looking effect.

WE WERE DONE!!! It looked so good, we had done a 1 ½ feet of base in a day and a half which is good timing, but it felt like it took forever. The Thai workers and the men in the family were very thankful and clapped and we had a few “American hurrahs!”

We have all been wearing name tags and today the Thai workers began wearing them. One of my favorite guys is Mard, (Mod or Mahd). He is so happy and has been a huge help in showing us how to do things. It is such a different experience because he doesn’t speak English, only a few words every now and then, so he has been pointing at stuff and I just follow along. Mard is a jokester and LOVES to giggle. He always says my name – I have found that the Thai people we have been working with say my name often because it is so easy to say. It has words in it that they understand, like man! Haha

OH! On a side note, I don’t know how I haven’t mentioned this!! The bathroom…. Not a bathroom. It is a shack that has a hold toilet bowl in the ground. There is a plumbing system but you flush by dumping a bowl of water into the toilet and it pushes the other stuff out. No toilet paper in the bowl, it has to be thrown in the trash! Of course my question was wonder if you gotta poop!! We all came to the consensus that we think it will get clogged and it might be better to use the bushes!

Went to the ocean today with Ashley and Diana; the waves were so big that after about five minutes we decided it was probably a good idea that we got out! On the way up, Ashley and I had our first market experience with bargaining and all! She did the math, I did the bargaining! We ended up getting bracelets!

I know that this is a lot of writing and visuals would be nice! We haven’t had much time but tomorrow you will see that I will have added pictures up to each of the posts to coincide with what I have been talking about, which should also make it easier to understand what I am talking about!

Love you all and hope all is great back at home!

Covered in Cement: July 28, 2009

As mentioned the actual job site is about 35 minutes away from our hotel. To get there we take two open truck taxi’s. They feel relatively safe although they are just benches with guard rails. On our way to the work site today we saw our first, what we think to be fatality accident. The cars were off the road and intertwined into a huge tree. It was very sad and scary to see.

Today our main goal was to finish the septic tank and the foundation slab so tomorrow we can finish the earth backfill and leveling of the ground to later cement that. This took a lot of work because they don’t use any measuring or power tools, they use the resources around them. We have been using all recycled supplies. Ben took over on the septic tank and completed that from start to finish. They had their old septic tank, which is four cement circles stacked up on top of each other right by the work site; they had been used before. Ben started by digging a big hole outside of the bathroom and one by one we would put in a cement circle. Before, this septic system sat on top of the soil – it didn’t drain; it would be left to seep into the soil. Because it was on top of the soil it would be in the sun, it would smell and take long to get down into the earth. What we did was put the entire septic tank underground by slowly adding one circle at a time and digging the dirt out. Since it was by the existing bathroom….. the top layers as you can imagine were NOT fun to deal with. As I said, Ben finished it in about three hours!

The rest of us focused on various parts of the foundation. I don’t know the exact name…. But we used a wire base for the frame and outside of the intertwined wire, we used big wood slabs for the framing of the home. Within that, we had to pour concrete which was time consuming job. As a few team members were doing that, me and about eight other people were using the old bricks, breaking them up with sludge hammers, and throwing them inside of the home. The bricks were the first layer of the “earth base layer.” We had a foot of bricks within the center of the home to level the next day.

After the lunch break, at 1:00 p.m, we started making the concrete for the frame of the home. We used the same mixture and ratio of gravel, sand, water, and one bag of mix. The buckets that we have to use are only about two gallon size. After we mix the cement, it goes in a large tub and we form a human line; starts with a scooper and we pass the full buckets down to the place we pour, someone pours, and there is a line down the other side for empties. This seems to be the quickest and most efficient way to get things done. This work took us four hours to do; once a batch was done, we had to restart the process of going to scoop up gravel, sand, water, etc. The process felt never ending and when we were done, we were covered in cement!

We were supposed to finish the frame today so it had time to set and dry and that way we could the following day we can do the inside foundation. Anne said that we are more than on track to complete this house from start to finish in eight days which is SO GREAT!! She said that the family raved about how we are finishing things so quickly and they were so appreciative.

Seeing their smiles and hearing their thank you’s throughout and at the end of the day makes the thirty three hours of flights all worth it! It’s good to see that even with two hard days of work, we have affected an entire family.

The Move to Phang Nga! (Pain-g Ga): July 27, 2009

We got up early today to see the sunrise… turns out there really isn’t much of one because of the mountains. Although, we did get lucky and we were able to see a thunderstorm heading over the ocean. At about eight a.m we heading to Phang Nga which is about a two hour drive away. The hotel we are staying at for the next two weeks is called The Andaburi Resort. It is smaller, but still very nice, although we have about a fifteen minute walk to the ocean. The beaches here are still amazing, I think better than Karon Bay because they are a bit cleaner. So much trash floats up along the shore line after stormy weather there or blows around from lack of garbage maintenance and hits the shore line. We got in about ten a.m and checked into our rooms with our roommates who we should be staying with for the remainder of the trip. At the other hotel, I was with a girl named Sheri from California; 27, very nice, pretty bubbly. There is a woman named Carol on our team who is about 55 years old and a Canada native who is now living in the Middle East teaching ESL. She is VERY high maintenance and right off the bat you know it is going to be a long trip for her. Apparently, she cannot share rooms with other people because she is used to living alone with her cat and dog. She “doesn’t like to share space and needs her own down time.” Going into this trip that was one of the biggest questions because of how expensive it can get… can you share a room with others?! Long story short, she decides here that she cannot and made a big scene and had to pay for her own room. Turns out our team leader found out that she changed the reservations at the hotel two weeks ago and added a room in our Jennifer’s name (team leader) so she would have a room next to ours for the two weeks. CRAZY LADY. So because of all of this, my roommate and I ended up getting split up and one of us was in the single room…. Me! I wouldn’t have minded having a roommate, but I can see where in about three or four days, it will be nice to just be able to come back from work and not wait for showers, etc.

At eleven we had our first opening meeting with Anne which was a video and a little bit about the Habitat program here in Thailand. Our schedule was shifted around a little and we decided that instead of going to the site where we are building to just meet the family we would actually get right to work. After a quick bite, we were off to the job site which is about thirty minutes away from the hotel. It is hard the first day because we are all trying to take in so much about the area since we do not have a lot of free time. Rubber trees are native to this area and plantations are virtually everywhere. Each tree has a tap that looks like a little bowl to drain the rubber; every now and then you see workers actually tapping the trees and collecting rubber.

Elephants, also their native animal are a common thing to see on the way. There are two spots with several elephants being trained or ridden. We haven’t quite figured out yet what else they are doing with that many elephants.

We arrived the site about 1:00 p.m and were introduced to the family.

After our daily safety orientation we jumped right in. The area for the house had been set – they had six pillars set into the ground for us to see the shape of the house and use as the base for the foundation area. A lot of the tasks we split up amongst our 14 team members. Cemement is the only task that takes almost everyone because it is such a time consuming job as you are starting from the beginning. We are mixing one bag of cemement, with 20 gravel baskets, and 28 sand buckets along with eight buckets of water. Luckily we have a very small cement mixer to mix one load at a time of cement. (I can’t imagine the job without the mixer since this already is very time consuming.) After the cement is ready, we form lines to pass down the cement to the pillar spots for the main house support, we then have a line on the other side passing down the empty buckets to speed up the process. After we were done setting the pillar foundation we used two large piles of bricks from the old house to be used as the base for the housing. We had to use sludge hammers to further break down the cement bricks and throw them basically inside the entire house. This would be the first layer to the earth base floor. We finished all of this work in about two and a half hours; the family and the host, Anne, were all shocked. They said they had never seen this process get done so fast. We even took several breaks in between our work due to the hot, muggy, weather. After about thirty minutes of work we were all already drenched in sweat! YUCKKK! Our days will end every day at 4:00 p.m. unless we finish early… today we started tomorrows work because we had about an hour left and thought we might as well utilize our time.

Heading back to the hotel, we all felt great and gung-ho for tomorrow since we finished early, we weren’t sore, tired, and we were proud of the work we already had done for the family. Jane, Ashley, Sally, and Sheri and I all went straight to the ocean for about an hour. (I will write up a little about each member in the following days so you know who I am talking about and I will know more about them as well.) Dinner was excellent at a place called Peter Pan’s which specialized in Thai and American foods…. Everyone was VERY excited since we had already had Thai meals six times in a row. Verrry sleepy after dinner, so we headed home and popped into bed for tomorrow will be our first FULL day of work.

"Depends" - July 26, 2009

Finally, off the plane and out of the airports! As we got off the plane, Ben and I were greeted by our host Anne, and her helper “O”. She immediately got us onto a van and off to our first hotel, The Phuket Orchid Resort. It was about a forty minute drive and reminded me a lot of Hawaii. The trees, the water, the heat, the smell of fresh flowers, and the smiling, happy faces….the only difference was that as we were driving along instead of feeling more relaxed, I definitely felt as if I was getting more tense. The driving is in Thailand is hardly defensive…. It is pure scary and makes you want to have a set of depends on hand in case you poop your pants from almost crashing into other cars and mopeds!!!!

There is not a set speed limit in many areas of Phuket and you only see a sign in random off roads in which are smaller community roads. Most of the roads are two lanes, winding, and very hilly since we are in a mountainous area of Thailand. Passing is acceptable anywhere in which they do take full advantage of… even on corners…. SO SCARY. Due to a lack of money, Anne told us that Mopeds are the way that most people get around in Southern Thailand. This is very true – you feel like a melting popsicle with bees swarming you. Mopeds = helmets in America....Not here. You will not see anyone on a moped wearing a helmet. Not only that, but most of the time, there is not just one person riding, we have seen two, three, and even four people. Some are families with their babies as young as one. It is the scariest thing ever and again makes you wish you were wearing depends because you feel as if you are going to hit them OR they are going to get hit by the cars that are constantly passing by! Ahhh so nerve-racking! OH but we did see one bar/stop that was FILLED with Harley riders… pretty funny.

As we arrive at the hotel, we meet part of our team. So far so good, the people are nice, down to earth, and just as we were, exhausted. There were five of us there at that point, including our Team Leader, Jennifer. We all had a quick bite to eat for lunch and decided to hit the ocean since we all stunk, had been on a plane, and trapped indoors for several hours. We were a two minute walk from Karon Bay. The ocean was AMAZING – it was about 80 degrees and the waves were huge – the sand was very fine and soft and had a lot of clay like sediment which immediately made me think, BANKS! After playing in the water, we did a little beach exploring and walking, and decided to head in, rest up, and shower for dinner.

By dinner time, we were all here – we immediately just kicked things off as if we had known each other forever; made things easy. The restaurant we went to was in the next bay down… Kata Bay. The tide goes out in the evening time which left all of the canoes on the sand. The restaurant was mainly seafood….Our host Anne had picked out several dishes, but for families and other visitors that head in, they get to choose their seafood of choice fresh out of the holding tanks. It was an early evening!

Flight Day.....

Packed and ready to go…. Spent the morning with my Mom and Dad, freaking out about packing and flying for so long. OF COURSE I packed the full 50 pounds plus a huge back pack full of electronics, blankies, pillows, and all of the valuables!

My mom and Julia dropped me off at the airport about 12:30 p.m. today, (July 24th). I was checked in, through security, and at the gate by 1:00 so I had some time to spare. I walked around and tried to get myself tired for the flight to Seoul, Korea. I lucked out and got a window seat in the middle on the wing. (Of course for those of you familiar with Ace Ventura, the WHOLE way to Korea, I had the line in my head…. “There’s someeee thing on the wing!” ha. Anyway, I had the row to myself and then a little bit after a little Korean man came up and sat in the aisle seat. We ended up talking for a bit and I told him that earlier that morning I found out that a guy I went to school with, Brooks Erickson, actually is teaching English at a school over in Seoul. At the time, I couldn’t remember which school is was to tell the guy on the plane. He was from Seoul and had a lot of touristy information because of his job. He travels back and forth between many countries, and when people go to Korea, he hosts them. It turns out Brooks works at The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. I need to look more into. Anyhow, the guy, I can’t even write or try to spell his name because its in symbols on the card he gave me!! The guy, we can call him Gus, gave me a list of cool places to see while in Seoul since on my way home from Thailand, I will have a 12 hour layover. SO LONG.

After arriving at the Korean Airport, there actually is a great deal of things to do such as free internet, rest and relax rooms, massages, etc. But I figure since I have SO much time, I might as well utilize my time here and sleep more on the plane.

So the rest of the flight when not talking to Gus, I met Ben, who is also on my Habitat for Humanity team. He is a single Dad of two ten-year-old-boys, Hunter and Holden. He later showed me a picture and they are absolutely adorable. Ironically, they live up in Klahani in Sammamish! We talked a little bit but were both tired and after they served a meal on the plane it was immediately quiet time and they had a everyone close the window shades so we took that as our cue to chat later.
I watched about three movies and a couple TV shows due to the lack of help the Benadryl was! Eleven hours later, we landed in Seoul, walked to our gate to check it out, and the first thing I saw was Green Bay Packers pennant put up in a little bar, ironic… first thought, someone in Korea likes Brett Faaarrrrrve! Shortly thereafter, about an hour, and we were back on the plane again to hit the five and a half hour jaunt to Bangkok, Thailand.

This plane ride I mostly slept, and we got to Bangkok about 11:00 p.m there time and 9:00 a.m. our time. The temperature when we landed was 85 degrees, it never cools down! The airport here is HUGE and unlike SeaTac is has metal chairs, tile floors, and no where to relax. The eight hour layover here is not looking promising and we cannot check in until 5:00 a.m. After attempting to sleep for a few hours, here I am sitting with Ben in a Starbucks in the comfy seats with people sleeping around us in anything comfortable they can find. It is about 4:25 and we will be heading down to the gate in about forty five minutes or so. This flight will take us to Phuket and we should be arriving there about 9:00 a.m. It’s a only about an hour….. from there we head to the hotel, the Phuket Orchid Resort and Spa. We will have the day to meet each other and have free time exploring Phuket until the following day in which we drive about an hour north to stay in Phang Nga where the build site is. More to come then… Love you all!

Thank You's!!!!!!

I want to say a few quick BIG THANK YOU’S before I hit the road…. (air)! J

Mom and Dad: I love you both more than words can express and I am so lucky to have your support through this all. Helping fundraise and support me with the little things made a HUGE difference and allowed me to come. I know it was all very last minute and spontaneous but I think that this will be a huge learning experience for me and allow me to grow. I will see how much MORE I appreciate home, family, and what we have. I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU and will MISS YOU BOTH SO MUCH!

Adley/Denny J : Thanks for being so chipper about this when I was freaking out about going…. The no big deal attitude and calming me down about the silly little things… ahhh all the Asians. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BUDDY and don’t know what I’d do without you! xoxo

To all of my special donators: Thank you so much for the support and your donations…. This truly would not have been possible. I am so lucky to have you all in my life and throwing me all of the well wishes are helping with my nerves.

Ahoy, Banks Lake Crew: I LOVE YOU and thank you so much for all of the support throughout this and the prayers that I survive this. It was SOO good seeing you all last week and am lucky I got to head of the country with a good ole fashion PIRATE party! Jungle theme is already stuck in my mind…. As I walked through stores with Jules we had never been more excited for banks to already be here again! I will be thinking of you all, especially when I am on the plane and listening to our beach hits and rocking out to Dire Straits, Lynyard, Steve Miller, etc, etc!

Funding

Habitat for Humanity is a great organization setup with strong moral values based upon God and all of his children…. Us! When you go on a habitat for humanity trip, whether it is in the United States or globally, they want to you to spread the word about the organization and tell others what you are doing and why.

To do mission building trips like this, it does cost money. The money goes towards building supplies and materials and the person’s food and lodging. Each building site or place of fix-up is different depending on the culture and environment in which they live; this particular trip to Thailand cost $1650. Within this budget, airfare is not included which adds another give or take $1500.

Due to my late decision on taking this trip, I only had a few months to do any fundraising. What I chose to do, and as many of you know because you received them, was sent out letters telling people what I was doing and why.

I have had a huge support base from doing that and I appreciate everyone for not only financial support, but their love, thoughts, and prayers.