Building in the Village
Some of the money we'd payed to go on the trip went towards buying the materials and paying the builders to build 10 houses in a small village, a bus trip north of Saigon. And part of the trip was for us to help out in the building process and hopefully have as many houses finished before their important 'Tet' or new years celebrations. This picture shows a house we were replacing with a new brick structure.
We would usually split up into 2 groups, with each group working on a different house- not never very far away. Each group also had an interpreter most of the time- and despite the fact that the village were people of a minority group who spoke their own language- most of them were able to speak enough Vietnamese to work things out. Although I think pointing, showing and body language/gestures often worked just as well- and I now have a decent Vietnamese vocab of building terms! 'Lay hoe' anyone- or more cement!
1st day was digging the foundations and my groups house just happened to be on the hardest ground! We broke so many tools and it took so long to get anywhere. Was interesting to see how they just fixed everything using the materials around them- the handle broke on a spade you find a branch, the hoe came lose- you wedge a piece of wood in their and moisten the wood so it expands...
I remember thinking at one point that if everyday was going to be like this we wouldn't even finish 1 house and it was going to be the hardest 2 weeks imaginable!
It got a lot easier, or maybe I just got a lot physically stronger all of a sudden....? Nah, there was a lot of carrying bricks, stones, water etc and then the brick laying wasn't too strenuous. (few issues with builder but that might be a separate post).
There was always a group of people and children standing around watching us, some the home owners, some trying to help. Lots of the kids were trying to help out, but the officials, who'd offered to take care of us, decided it was too dangerous for them..... and it was really, kids playing or helping in the sand with bare feet while we were using shovels etc. So we also had to come up with games to do with them to keep them away from the building- lots of the hokey pokey and chicken dance- they taught us stuff to.
Jackie and I had brick carrying competitions!!! (yes, the bricks have their holes on the 'wrong' side!)
There generally builders at all houses, although a times that didn't show up! And so work was being done on all houses even if we weren't there. But we managed to do a fair chunk of work on most of the houses. The other issue was often having to wait for building supplies to arrive before we could do any more work- 1 family was apparently related to the 'sand guy' so they got their sand 1st...
Steph and me cement washing the walls of a house with brushes we'd made ourselves out of a stick and some straw.
Mich working next to the builder, cement rendering the front step of the same house.
What I like best about it was being able to work with the builders and the families and getting to know them that way, despite language barriers. We did everything their way- didn't come in and take over with our western style of building a house- think they thought it funny that a bunch of white, mostly girls would even bother helping them in such manual labor.
We would usually split up into 2 groups, with each group working on a different house- not never very far away. Each group also had an interpreter most of the time- and despite the fact that the village were people of a minority group who spoke their own language- most of them were able to speak enough Vietnamese to work things out. Although I think pointing, showing and body language/gestures often worked just as well- and I now have a decent Vietnamese vocab of building terms! 'Lay hoe' anyone- or more cement!
1st day was digging the foundations and my groups house just happened to be on the hardest ground! We broke so many tools and it took so long to get anywhere. Was interesting to see how they just fixed everything using the materials around them- the handle broke on a spade you find a branch, the hoe came lose- you wedge a piece of wood in their and moisten the wood so it expands...
I remember thinking at one point that if everyday was going to be like this we wouldn't even finish 1 house and it was going to be the hardest 2 weeks imaginable!
It got a lot easier, or maybe I just got a lot physically stronger all of a sudden....? Nah, there was a lot of carrying bricks, stones, water etc and then the brick laying wasn't too strenuous. (few issues with builder but that might be a separate post).
There was always a group of people and children standing around watching us, some the home owners, some trying to help. Lots of the kids were trying to help out, but the officials, who'd offered to take care of us, decided it was too dangerous for them..... and it was really, kids playing or helping in the sand with bare feet while we were using shovels etc. So we also had to come up with games to do with them to keep them away from the building- lots of the hokey pokey and chicken dance- they taught us stuff to.
Jackie and I had brick carrying competitions!!! (yes, the bricks have their holes on the 'wrong' side!)
There generally builders at all houses, although a times that didn't show up! And so work was being done on all houses even if we weren't there. But we managed to do a fair chunk of work on most of the houses. The other issue was often having to wait for building supplies to arrive before we could do any more work- 1 family was apparently related to the 'sand guy' so they got their sand 1st...
Steph and me cement washing the walls of a house with brushes we'd made ourselves out of a stick and some straw.
Mich working next to the builder, cement rendering the front step of the same house.What I like best about it was being able to work with the builders and the families and getting to know them that way, despite language barriers. We did everything their way- didn't come in and take over with our western style of building a house- think they thought it funny that a bunch of white, mostly girls would even bother helping them in such manual labor.
posted by Mim @ 10:57 AM
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