The Work Begins!

March 23:

We headed ro the airport at 5:30am for our flight to Rach Gian in Kien Giang province. Our group took up most of the plane.

After our buses picked us up at the aiport we stopped for breakfast and then were taken to our hotels. We are spread out among 3 hotels all of which thankfully have a/c. I was also thankful I treated a sleeping sack with permetrin as recommended because there were definitely bed bugs. Others who slept directly on the sheets woke up with bug bites but so far our sacks have protected us.

By 10am we were at the Catalyst Foundation school which the kids from the garbage dump attend. Adults and kids spent the next 2 hours sorting all of the donations into their proper areas: medical, clothing, toys, gift bags, art exchange, camp supplies and construction tools.

After lunch the home team started our 1st job. We were split into 2 groups with each of us assigned to build a house in 2.5 days. We spent the next 3 hours hauling sand that had been delivered by the roadside to the housing site whice was down a narrow path. I'm not very good with judging distances but we had to haul it past several other houses, through a graveyard, and past a few more houses. There was no wheelbarrow so we had to carry it in buckets and burlap bags. After hauling the sand to the house we dumped it as a based for the foundation. We were hot, sweaty, and filthy by the end of the day and wondered how we were going to complete the project in only 2 more days.

The family the house is for worked side by side with us in their bare feet and were happy to have us there. We drew a large gathering of spectators who probably had never seen a foreigner in their neighborhood before.

At the same time, Zach's distribution team was back at the shool. They finished the sorting process and started portioning the rice the families would receive the following day.

We both were exhausted at the end of the day. Zach was so tired he fell asleep at the table while we were at the restaurant eating dinner. We were in bed by 8pm so we could be ready to go by 6:15 the next day.