Saturday, June 11, 2011

New village, new school..

... but just as exciting!

 
Our new school project!
We’ve jumped in at about 2 weeks into the building progress, which is kind of fun because that’s about where our 2010 team left off last year (in a different village – the school’s done and full of happy kids now! See my last post! :) ), and also because we’ll be here for 3 weeks, and we will get to see the school *almost* through to completion.

Gettin' to work!
Our team.. note the (awesome) matching flower work shirts :)

Lots of work building a school…

Dirt scooping (and carrying!) out of classrooms to get a flat foundation

Filling up empty classroom floors...
... with giant rocks



Lots of rocks!

Smashing rocks...


Me with a sledge hammer (that I can barely lift over my head)… I felt like Fred Flinstone
... rock bed smashed to smithereens

Covering up all the rock bed with sand...
Some brick laying, of course! 

And brick throwing up to the other workers for the parts we can't be trusted to build without falling
A mighty solid toss, if I do say so myself :)

Tying rebar for the cement posts
 It IS hard work… mostly  because it is probably about 50 degrees out! The thermometer on my alarm clock read 48.5 the other day – and I don’t think that includes humidity (and it is HUMID!)… I put my clock away before the team could get more smothered by KNOWING how hot it is! :

But, it’s really not so bad! We get lots of help from the kids in the village who can’t wait to get their hands on deck (and never seem to tire out)!

Making a chain game of dirt carrying

 
 


And, anyways, the purpose of our time here is very little about getting a school built – the school will be finished whether we are here or not. But it is about serving side by side alongside Cambodians building their own local community, giving the best of ourselves and in the process, connecting with the local community, learning about need, and getting a real picture of our place in the world to respond. It’s about learning to love people, witnessing poverty first hand, experiencing some kind of personal growth and development, hopefully leaving inspired to keep engaging with the poor.

While we were sitting around preparing the rebar that would go inside the cement posts and chatting, someone asked me if what I am doing now is what I had wanted to do when I did my studies in international development. I smiled: well, no not exactly – when I was studying, I hadn’t quite pictured sitting on a brick in the sun twisting rebar… but being a part of effective and successful rural development initiatives firsthand and being a part of other people getting excited about it as well...its a good place to be. :)

Not too shabby... we'll see how it looks after 2 more weeks! :)
Many more photos to share.. but it's painfully slow uploading them with the internet here! I'll be out of internet range again from tomorrow for another week or more... but I'll be in touch again.. One more important post on its way. :)

xoxo
Rainbow

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