*a glimpse of the worksite*
So we’ve been at our projects for more than two weeks, and we’ve all kind of developed some pretty cool construction work skills as we’ve made progress at our respective worksites. There are two schools we’re working at to build bathrooms, which Vu showed us on our initial bike tour so that we could choose our sites (splitting the group in half). My site, Tram Quoc Toan, is a primary school, and the site also has a lot of shade where we actually work (a solid reason for choosing it, honestly). So at my site, it’s me, Kayla, Austin, Andrew, Jared, and Alexa, as well as our respective roommates, of course, and the other site has everyone else. When we chose our sites, there wasn’t even a struggle of choosing, which Vu was super impressed with because it’s apparently never happened before. At first, it seemed odd that we were splitting up but in reality it makes so much sense. First off, there are twenty-four of us and that’s just too many people to get anything done anywhere. (Even with twelve people we often don’t have enough tools for everyone to be working at the same time). And also, we are engaging in the same kind of project for the same community, but working at different worksites and with different masons helps us share our experiences with each other more than if we were all at the same place working on the same stuff. Plus it creates different worksite vibes and we all compete to see who has the better worksite (hint: it’s mine…)
A basic schedule first: We wake up around 5:45 AM, go to breakfast at 6, and we’re at our worksites by 6:40. It’s early to avoid the sun, which I love because it forces everyone to be in bed by 10:30 PM which is me on the daily (everyone from our group- the Vietnamese roommates are really into staying up late and are just so energetic with less than 5 hours of sleep and I just don’t get it!) And we leave our worksites at 10:30 AM.
The vibe of the entire site is just pure sass. And by that I really mean that the vibe is “Let’s all target our frustrations on harmlessly making fun of Nikila,” and I’m actually all in for serving that purpose especially if it makes everyone happy! I usually just giggle or laugh or say something dumb in response and it’s all good. I can say the only times I’ve really been frustrated and had to work hard to be patient, or think about it after and reflect, have been when people get really tense when we don’t have a whole lot to do and I’m already tired, or when Metallica is played at the site (@Jared @Austin) or when some tasks have gotten lost in translation with the Vietnamese roommates. Like on Friday, we were nearly done for the day and had a full wheelbarrow of cement to spread between bricks, and then I’m not sure how but another batch was mixed…so we couldn’t leave until it was finished, and we all ended up working in the sun and being late to lunch.
Recently though, the translation situation has gotten better for a few reasons. One is just getting to know our roommates better and being more comfortable asking them what the masons said. The weekend trips are really prime for that because we see everyone off site, what they like, what they don’t like, and basic friendship forming happens. There was a little bit of a divide the first few weeks between Vietnamese students and American students at the site, when each group would speak their own language and that was a little odd. But just by virtue of familiarity, our communication and camaraderie at the worksite has improved a lot. Also, we’ve gotten more familiar with the masons and them with us. Alexa and I do our best to be the best masons-in-training, or mason’s pets, if you will. We’re the first to grab bricks or cement for them when they need it, and we tell each other that we’re the chosen ones any time they tell us or show us a task. Not sure if we are their favorites, but they definitely smile at our attempts to say “good morning” and “brick” and “too hot!” in Vietnamese! Or when we fail at a construction task- and they laugh to each other.
Although the failing has kind of decreased. Over the last three weeks, we’ve finished digging out a foundation and building the walls for the bathroom, which will have urinals and in-ground toilets. It’s like a daily thing for us to ask, “But where will the poop go?” It’s still a little hard to envision what we’ve been working on as a bathroom just because we’ve never done this- fully build a legitimate bathroom before. However, the last two and a half weeks have given us a lot of skills. The first day, we had to break down parts of the existing bathroom, because we would be reusing some of those toilets so it would be built in the same place. We learned from the masons and from Vu how to hammer and pickaxe away large chunks of tiles, and then we dug out the dirt below so we could rebuild the foundation. The next few days were intense arm days, transporting concrete blocks and bricks from the front of the school where they were dropped off by the truckload back to where the bathroom. For Duke students, a comparable distance would probably be from the West bus stop hallway to the Chapel- which doesn’t seem super terrible, but it gets long when you’re carrying about five bricks, over and over for about four hours! And then we started building, the foundation first with concrete bricks and then the walls with the red bricks. We nearly cleared out the bricks- but then, surprise! We got more. We’ve also mixed a LOT of concrete and also learned the distinctions between cement, concrete, and mortar (and by “we” mixed the concrete I don’t include myself because it is the literal worst). Building up the bricks was a huge team effort made more so by the lack of tools and space for everyone- I remember one of my biggest fears for some time was that someone would “steal” my tools, which were a spade and a flat thing to hold concrete. Except “steal” is inaccurate just because everyone is pitching in whenever they see work. The bricks would be laid down by the masons and they’d check if it was straight using quite rudimentary tools, like hanging a stone on a piece of string. I’m still not really sure how that works, but their ingenuity amazes me. There was one day we needed to straighten thick steel wire and there wasn’t a tool for it- and one of the masons just fashioned a tool with a hammer and another piece of steel.
After laying bricks, we would come in and spread concrete between the bricks. As it got higher, we used a scaffolding and piled bricks to stand on precariously. The last few days, it’s been even less work just because at its highest, only two people can really be on the scaffolding at the same time, so one mason and one of us. Otherwise, we worked to make out steel frames or just dole out concrete when needed. It’s sometimes frustrating when we don’t really have much to do and we’re sitting around, but it’s important enough that we know when to get to work when needed, and starting this week we’ll be spreading concrete layers over the bricks for smooth walls which is apparently very hard work so I’m excited.
The running joke is that I get the dirtiest, but my response to that is that if you aren’t getting dirty you aren’t doing it right. It’s really not true because the masons of course barely have a fleck of concrete on them, but it’s a solid defensive statement at any rate. I’m not really sure how it happens.
As long as we don’t let the heat really get to us (again: tg we are in the shade!) and as long as we generally have things to do, the worksite is a good time. It feels right to hold these tools and see our progress week to week and wipe the sweat and dirt off our faces.
So we’ve been at our projects for more than two weeks, and we’ve all kind of developed some pretty cool construction work skills as we’ve made progress at our respective worksites. There are two schools we’re working at to build bathrooms, which Vu showed us on our initial bike tour so that we could choose our sites (splitting the group in half). My site, Tram Quoc Toan, is a primary school, and the site also has a lot of shade where we actually work (a solid reason for choosing it, honestly). So at my site, it’s me, Kayla, Austin, Andrew, Jared, and Alexa, as well as our respective roommates, of course, and the other site has everyone else. When we chose our sites, there wasn’t even a struggle of choosing, which Vu was super impressed with because it’s apparently never happened before. At first, it seemed odd that we were splitting up but in reality it makes so much sense. First off, there are twenty-four of us and that’s just too many people to get anything done anywhere. (Even with twelve people we often don’t have enough tools for everyone to be working at the same time). And also, we are engaging in the same kind of project for the same community, but working at different worksites and with different masons helps us share our experiences with each other more than if we were all at the same place working on the same stuff. Plus it creates different worksite vibes and we all compete to see who has the better worksite (hint: it’s mine…)
A basic schedule first: We wake up around 5:45 AM, go to breakfast at 6, and we’re at our worksites by 6:40. It’s early to avoid the sun, which I love because it forces everyone to be in bed by 10:30 PM which is me on the daily (everyone from our group- the Vietnamese roommates are really into staying up late and are just so energetic with less than 5 hours of sleep and I just don’t get it!) And we leave our worksites at 10:30 AM.
The vibe of the entire site is just pure sass. And by that I really mean that the vibe is “Let’s all target our frustrations on harmlessly making fun of Nikila,” and I’m actually all in for serving that purpose especially if it makes everyone happy! I usually just giggle or laugh or say something dumb in response and it’s all good. I can say the only times I’ve really been frustrated and had to work hard to be patient, or think about it after and reflect, have been when people get really tense when we don’t have a whole lot to do and I’m already tired, or when Metallica is played at the site (@Jared @Austin) or when some tasks have gotten lost in translation with the Vietnamese roommates. Like on Friday, we were nearly done for the day and had a full wheelbarrow of cement to spread between bricks, and then I’m not sure how but another batch was mixed…so we couldn’t leave until it was finished, and we all ended up working in the sun and being late to lunch.
Recently though, the translation situation has gotten better for a few reasons. One is just getting to know our roommates better and being more comfortable asking them what the masons said. The weekend trips are really prime for that because we see everyone off site, what they like, what they don’t like, and basic friendship forming happens. There was a little bit of a divide the first few weeks between Vietnamese students and American students at the site, when each group would speak their own language and that was a little odd. But just by virtue of familiarity, our communication and camaraderie at the worksite has improved a lot. Also, we’ve gotten more familiar with the masons and them with us. Alexa and I do our best to be the best masons-in-training, or mason’s pets, if you will. We’re the first to grab bricks or cement for them when they need it, and we tell each other that we’re the chosen ones any time they tell us or show us a task. Not sure if we are their favorites, but they definitely smile at our attempts to say “good morning” and “brick” and “too hot!” in Vietnamese! Or when we fail at a construction task- and they laugh to each other.
Although the failing has kind of decreased. Over the last three weeks, we’ve finished digging out a foundation and building the walls for the bathroom, which will have urinals and in-ground toilets. It’s like a daily thing for us to ask, “But where will the poop go?” It’s still a little hard to envision what we’ve been working on as a bathroom just because we’ve never done this- fully build a legitimate bathroom before. However, the last two and a half weeks have given us a lot of skills. The first day, we had to break down parts of the existing bathroom, because we would be reusing some of those toilets so it would be built in the same place. We learned from the masons and from Vu how to hammer and pickaxe away large chunks of tiles, and then we dug out the dirt below so we could rebuild the foundation. The next few days were intense arm days, transporting concrete blocks and bricks from the front of the school where they were dropped off by the truckload back to where the bathroom. For Duke students, a comparable distance would probably be from the West bus stop hallway to the Chapel- which doesn’t seem super terrible, but it gets long when you’re carrying about five bricks, over and over for about four hours! And then we started building, the foundation first with concrete bricks and then the walls with the red bricks. We nearly cleared out the bricks- but then, surprise! We got more. We’ve also mixed a LOT of concrete and also learned the distinctions between cement, concrete, and mortar (and by “we” mixed the concrete I don’t include myself because it is the literal worst). Building up the bricks was a huge team effort made more so by the lack of tools and space for everyone- I remember one of my biggest fears for some time was that someone would “steal” my tools, which were a spade and a flat thing to hold concrete. Except “steal” is inaccurate just because everyone is pitching in whenever they see work. The bricks would be laid down by the masons and they’d check if it was straight using quite rudimentary tools, like hanging a stone on a piece of string. I’m still not really sure how that works, but their ingenuity amazes me. There was one day we needed to straighten thick steel wire and there wasn’t a tool for it- and one of the masons just fashioned a tool with a hammer and another piece of steel.
After laying bricks, we would come in and spread concrete between the bricks. As it got higher, we used a scaffolding and piled bricks to stand on precariously. The last few days, it’s been even less work just because at its highest, only two people can really be on the scaffolding at the same time, so one mason and one of us. Otherwise, we worked to make out steel frames or just dole out concrete when needed. It’s sometimes frustrating when we don’t really have much to do and we’re sitting around, but it’s important enough that we know when to get to work when needed, and starting this week we’ll be spreading concrete layers over the bricks for smooth walls which is apparently very hard work so I’m excited.
The running joke is that I get the dirtiest, but my response to that is that if you aren’t getting dirty you aren’t doing it right. It’s really not true because the masons of course barely have a fleck of concrete on them, but it’s a solid defensive statement at any rate. I’m not really sure how it happens.
As long as we don’t let the heat really get to us (again: tg we are in the shade!) and as long as we generally have things to do, the worksite is a good time. It feels right to hold these tools and see our progress week to week and wipe the sweat and dirt off our faces.