Day 3:
Three days into building the house, and although the house itself doesnt look much different, we have definitely been accomplishing a lot. We finally finished shoveling all of the dirt into the house, and that felt quite good to finally be done with that. We pretty decided our team motto was "Everyday I'm Shovelin'" (which if you know the band LMFAO and their Party Rock Anthem, it makes that particularly funny). And we got the art of the assembly line and passing buckets down to an art. We also had to prepare more rebar which actually entailed cutting it and bending it. My job was to be the bender, which was a tedious job, and took a lot of arm muscle.We also put together the scaffolding to prepare to lay the bricks tomorrow.
Day 4:
Bricklayer Becky in the house! (Literally, I was laying bricks inside the house we are building) Today was all about mixing the cement and laying the bricks. According to others who have been on previous Habitat trips, this was actually a treat to be able to do this task because they said often the professionals want to do it. This was a fun thing to do because the professionals here in Thailand did not speak a lick of English. My partner was our group leader Maris, so she would scoop on the mortar and I would lay the brick, or vice versa. But obviously, we are not professionals, so occasionally, (and only occasionally) when we would have a brick that may not have been done quite as well as it could have been, the worker would just come up behind us, remove the brick, and re-do it himself. Quite a comedic thing to see. So anyways, now the house is beggining to look like a legit house, which gives a great sense of accomplishment. But I think my favorite part of working so far has been the fact that the family we are building the house for helps us every step of the way. They bring us our food, and the husband is always out there with us with this huge smile on his face, and he doesnt speak a word of English either, but its super fun to communicate with him, and he is like, the nicest guy ever.
So, it has been some hard work and sweaty days, but now we get our 'weekend.' Sunday and Monday we get off because the country is celebrating the King's birthday. Tomorrow we are going rafting, hiking, and riding elephants!! Cant wait!