It’s been a while since I’ve blogged – actually a really long time and I apologize for that. It’s been a very hectic couple of weeks with us finally arriving in Quang Tri and meeting our Vietnamese roommates. My roommate’s name is Nhi and she ended her sophomore year, studying tourism. Now our group consists of not 12 but 24 students. Everyone is very nice and sincere, and is really willing to help out at the construction site and the classrooms.
I’m in my second week here in Quang Tri, and so far it’s been going great. It sometimes does get tiring and I’m usually half awake at breakfast. I’m slowly adjusting to the morning person routine as I try to sleep before 10:30 pm and wake up before breakfast at 6 am. Our schedule is very similar throughout the week. Breakfast at 6 am, and then biking to the construction site at 6:30. Luckily our construction sites are not that far from out guest house – around 1 to 2 kilometers away. I work at the Tan Quac Toan primary school and the 12 of us and 2 masons work together to rebuild an old bathroom. Before getting started, I was really worried about working in the morning because I thought the weather would be unbearably hot and humid. I think I got lucky because I got to choose a site with a shade for most of the hours we were there. The bathroom was at the back of the school so the tall school buildings covered us with shade.
The first couple of days at the construction site were rough as we were moving and lifting a lot of things. We had to break all the tiles and concrete with pick axes and hammers of the old bathroom floor and shovel sands and rocks from holes. It was my first time using a pick ax and although it was hard, it was a lot of fun. It was an intense first day but it was exciting to finally start working on the bathroom. The next few days was a lot of unloading bricks from the truck and moving them to the back of the school. We probably moved more than a thousand bricks, concrete, and cement, loading them onto wheelbarrows or just carrying them. Everyone was covered in shades of orange by the end due to the bricks. It was physically tiring but it was nice to see everyone working together, and the satisfying feeling after moving everything was great.
After the foundation, the end of last week and this week was mostly stacking up bricks and filling gaps with cement. The masons are amazing at what they do. Some of us mix cement with sand and water and the masons stack up the bricks for the bathroom walls. We help them out by handing them bricks and filling cement in between the bricks. At first it was hard to communicate with the masons because they didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Vietnamese. That’s where the roommates came in and translated everything, giving us instructions about what to do and how we could help out. I’ve realized that flexibility and simply using common sense is crucial as no one is there to tell me what to do every step of the way. If I notice that the cement is too dry, I need to add water; If the mason is running out of bricks to stack, I need to get more.
It’s only been my second week here in Quang Tri so I can’t exactly pinpoint how I’ve been changing or even sure if I have. Being an only child, it is a new experience spending so much time with so many people in the summer. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming but I’m lucky to have such people to talk to and share my experiences with.
I’m in my second week here in Quang Tri, and so far it’s been going great. It sometimes does get tiring and I’m usually half awake at breakfast. I’m slowly adjusting to the morning person routine as I try to sleep before 10:30 pm and wake up before breakfast at 6 am. Our schedule is very similar throughout the week. Breakfast at 6 am, and then biking to the construction site at 6:30. Luckily our construction sites are not that far from out guest house – around 1 to 2 kilometers away. I work at the Tan Quac Toan primary school and the 12 of us and 2 masons work together to rebuild an old bathroom. Before getting started, I was really worried about working in the morning because I thought the weather would be unbearably hot and humid. I think I got lucky because I got to choose a site with a shade for most of the hours we were there. The bathroom was at the back of the school so the tall school buildings covered us with shade.
The first couple of days at the construction site were rough as we were moving and lifting a lot of things. We had to break all the tiles and concrete with pick axes and hammers of the old bathroom floor and shovel sands and rocks from holes. It was my first time using a pick ax and although it was hard, it was a lot of fun. It was an intense first day but it was exciting to finally start working on the bathroom. The next few days was a lot of unloading bricks from the truck and moving them to the back of the school. We probably moved more than a thousand bricks, concrete, and cement, loading them onto wheelbarrows or just carrying them. Everyone was covered in shades of orange by the end due to the bricks. It was physically tiring but it was nice to see everyone working together, and the satisfying feeling after moving everything was great.
After the foundation, the end of last week and this week was mostly stacking up bricks and filling gaps with cement. The masons are amazing at what they do. Some of us mix cement with sand and water and the masons stack up the bricks for the bathroom walls. We help them out by handing them bricks and filling cement in between the bricks. At first it was hard to communicate with the masons because they didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Vietnamese. That’s where the roommates came in and translated everything, giving us instructions about what to do and how we could help out. I’ve realized that flexibility and simply using common sense is crucial as no one is there to tell me what to do every step of the way. If I notice that the cement is too dry, I need to add water; If the mason is running out of bricks to stack, I need to get more.
It’s only been my second week here in Quang Tri so I can’t exactly pinpoint how I’ve been changing or even sure if I have. Being an only child, it is a new experience spending so much time with so many people in the summer. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming but I’m lucky to have such people to talk to and share my experiences with.