Day 2
What an interesting evening we had yesterday! As we checked in to the hotel we all met down in the lobby and walked to a restaurant for dinner. The dinner was a choice of Pho (Vietnamese noodles with a delicious soup), with either chicken or beef. After dinner we walked to the market to see if anything was of interest. Some of the boys bought themselves some t-shirts and fans, and Trym bought the nón lá, quintessential Vietnamese straw-hat! We walked back to the hotel, went to buy some water, and off to bed…
This morning was off to an early start! We were all woken up at 6:30 to get some breakfast before our next bus ride. We had all packed our suitcases before breakfast so we were all ready to go. In the bus, we practiced two songs; I’m Yours by Jason Mraz and Here Comes The Sun by Beatles, that we are going to perform on Sunday for the Vietnamese families. The bus ride took about 2 hours, and we were all so excited about what the day would be like. BRING IT ON!
After the bus ride, we came to our hotel in Long An. Mr. Glover said that we should feel privileged that we have a chance to live in this big hotel with much space and good rooms, especially since this is where the Long An Government Officials stay. We checked in, left our bags in our rooms and went down for a briefing from our supervisors at the build site. Xuan, our project coordinator told us about Habitat for Humanities’ operations in Vietnam, it was really moving to hear about all of the people that Habitat has helped over their ten-year span in Vietnam. It feels great to be able to help the people who need it the most. We were also introduced to the rest of our build-site supervisors. The group of students were split between the two build sites.
Lunch, which was served shortly afterwards, was interesting. There were some known sorts of food and other Vietnamese food, previously unknown to me. It was a good meal offering a lot of new flavours. The bus ride right after lunch to the build site took about 15 minutes. After we got off the bus, we walked for about 5 minutes down a path to the build site, where there was a family waiting for us with anticipation to arrive so we could start the building. We decided to split our group up into 2 teams; one team for brick laying and another team for using the wheelbarrows to carry the bricks back to the house, which was just down the path. Halfway through the day we switched jobs so that everyone had a chance at doing all of the jobs.
So tired now though, my back and shoulders are sore from today’s workout, but it was a good day and I enjoyed it a lot. True, it was barely two full sessions that we spent in building the homes, yet our arms and backs have begun to tire – our determination remains stronger than ever. After 3 more full days of building we’d be completely drained that’s for sure!
We have to wake up early at 6 tomorrow, so we should all catch some sleep now, and a new group will report about tomorrow’s events in full detail!
Marie Croucher, Oskar Haaland, Elliott Day
Day 3
Mr. Glover, being the early riser that he is us, acted as our morning alarm clock, knocking on our doors at 6 am, and boy, was it tough to get up! After some quick breakfast to pump up the energy for some hard labour, we left to the build site, all ready for a long day of work. When we first got there, we split up all the tasks between the students as there were several jobs to be done.
Some people were scrubbing the roof clean, others were laying the bricks and while others were well underway, preparing the mortar that was to be slathered on the brick walls. Around 11:30 we headed off to the villagers' house where they had prepared a 'ngon' (delicious) lunch for us. It was great! We all sat down for lunch and ate talking about the day. At lunch we discussed how we were getting tired of repeating the same jobs and came up with the idea of keeping 30 minute time slots. Every 30 minutes we switched jobs so that people would stay motivated and get all the jobs done – perhaps all of Mr Scheib's business teaching has finally gotten to us!
It felt nicer to work today as we got closer to some of the locals, while trying to pick up a few words of Vietnamese. Mr Scheib, on the other hand, was busy making noises to the small kids. Although we were pretty sure it was scaring them...
Two kilometres down the road, in the second worksite, we set up the famous human brick conveyor belt! Each person shifted a total of 3 tonnes of bricks! Can you believe it? THREE TONNES! Brick laying, Shoveling and Wheelbarrowing was assigned to the experts by Chanh, the supervisor – after all, we did not spend half a day doing these tasks without gaining some experience and knowledge about it! But a couple of us also had the great privilege to – scrub the roofs and straighten the iron rod coils...
But after 6 hours of working, there was only one thing on our minds – FOOD! In an hour, we hurried back to the room, took a quick shower and presto- on the bus to one of the best restaurants in all of Long An. And the food? While some all time favourites like Pepsi and Coke were served, we had some novel items on offer as well, such as the self rolled rice paper rolls, filled with the goodness of fish and vegetables, and LOTS of it!
After that satisfying dinner, some of us headed towards the night market here in Long An, whereas others headed back to the hotel, exhausted from the day's work. Luckily for us, tomorrow, being a Sunday, is the rest day and we'd have lots more to say about the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are located merely 2 hours away from Long An, by road. But more about that would be covered by Mangala, Garett and Ying Shu, in tomorrow's blog entry!
Until then, chúc ngủ ngon (goodnight!)
Connie, Mahind and Malavika
Day 6
Life in Vietnam
Child's play
Today has been the third consecutive day we worked on our building site. Everything has been spectacular so far – we were so efficient that we got two whole hours of break after lunch. While we took this opportunity to relax, the children of the villages came out to play. They might not have had the luxurious entertainment that we have with with our Nintendos, Playstations, Wiis, Gameboys and what not, yet they still find such joy in their activities.
In their free time, the children would pick the fruits from the plants around their homes and play an innovative version of “catch” amongst themselves. The children use the palm tree leaves and play “dress up” with each other as well! The stories presented through such role plays were so intense that some children would even use the branches to dress up as the white knight to save the princess from the evil witch characters.
Other than the fruit plants, they have a very simple pink princess dress that was shared by the entire group of girls in the village. The six girls would dress up in their pink feathers and run around the alleyways flaunting their newfound status of royalty in the children's playground in the village – the roads, the corridors and the backyards!
When the students had no equipment and toys to play with, they would start a game of “hand wrestling where two people will have to push against each other, over the line with nothing else but their bare palms. From these distractions, the children have taught us that they can pursue happiness without the luxurious entertainment that we have grown to accustomed and addicted such urban comforts.
Communal Life:
Today, we also investigated how the families at our build site spend time during the day and how different their lives are from ours.
Having gained 4 days of experience of making houses (as it was our last day building), we realized that the locals are very self – sufficient in the way that they make everything they require rather than buying it. An example of this is their food and house. Instead of going to restaurants or having solely professional construction workers build the house, they do it on their own - by buying raw materials (which they then convert into finished goods).
Also, the locals at the build site can live in much tougher conditions than us. I was absolutely stunned to see that the locals were very happy and were all smiles despite living in such tough conditions. Upon discussion with our entire group, everyone agreed that living in a place such as theirs on a daily basis would not be possible for us. This shows the never say die attitude of these locals and the sacrifices they are making in order to improve their lives.
The daily routine of their life:
Today was the third day we worked at the site. It has been a great experience and I have found this trip to be very exciting. We went to many places in Long An in the past few days but the place that was most intriguing was the village we built the house at. On the first day of our built the villagers welcomed us with open arms and warm smiles. Their hospitality was matchless and their simplicity was humbling to watch.
The Vietnamese villagers also enjoy a slow moving and relaxing lifestyle. They enjoy having sumptuous food and a nap following that. They also have tea regularly. However as we sat and ate lunch today we observed yet another thing, that these villagers had a very unique way of life . They led very simple lives but had very innovative yet inexpensive methods of completing their tasks efficiently. For example, after lunch I observed that they were washing their plates with rainwater collected over time. They also collected all our empty bottles of water to recycle it. It is truly amazing to see what people can do when they have limited resources. This is of course very different from our way of life which is much more sophisticated and that involves a very high dependency on advanced technology.
From breaking bricks in exact halves with metal rods to using metal bars to straighten out long metal rods, their simple yet clever methods were really impressive and surprising. It was refreshing to see that people still lived life on very simple terms and remained happy. Watching them has inspired me to appreciate all the goodness in life instead of dwelling on the things that have gone wrong or that I don't have. Understanding and learning the Vietnamese way of life in villages has been very pleasurable and experiential.
William Wang, Utkarsh Chaturvedi, Lasse Jensen Habitat Build Album
