Dong Thap

March 26:

The construction team split into 3 groups today. Two of the groups did home renovations and the other worked on constructing a brick house. I was in the group that worked on the brick house.

We took our bus part way to the site and then had to take a smaller vehicle called a Tuk Tuk the rest of the way. This is because the roads were too narrow for the bus and because some of the bridges could not support the weight of the bus.

Part of our group, including myself, spent the day laying bricks and mortar. It was hard work for me especially since I had never done it before and there was no shade to be found. There was also another latrine to dig - a 4 ft square that was 4.5 feet deep.

We were schedule to work until 5pm but they let us stop at 3pm because we were all starting to feel the effects of the heat and we had run out of bottled water.

Zach spent his day visiting a school. They played games with the children there (soccer and duck, duck, goose) and did crafts witht hem. They passed out beanie babies as gifts and distributed the food. After lunch they had the afternoon off. They played inside in the a/c for a while and then went to a park.