Sunday, March 23, 2008

It takes a village in Rach Gia to build a home - Day 3


Wow, I am physically and emotionally tired from today. We flew from Phu Quoc to Rach Gia (pronounced Rockia) which was a 30 minute flight. It is hard to imagine how families can live as they do. It is very humbling.

There were two homes we were to begin working on. The first home (which is the site I stayed at) was surrounded by many raised grave sites. The second home the volunteers had to take a 2 minute boat ride to. I am assuming all the graves were family members. They had at least 5 different families living in this one little area. We met the family we were building the home for, a woman and her 3 children. One of her daughters was a victim of rape at 9. This is one reason we are helping to rebuild their home so she has a safe place. Their mother was so happy to have us there and she amazed us all by pitching in and carrying bags of sand and rocks all with a smile on her face. I am not sure if she had a husband, I never saw him. It was a great day though. All the children helped and we had fun trying to communicate with them (they enjoyed laughing at us and pointing to our skin to show us how pale we all were) and many helped us by shoveling the sand into our bags. They also enjoyed having their photos with our digital and polariod cameras. It took us 3 hours, 13 volunteers and numerous children and a few adults living in the area to complete the foundation. We got some relief from the heat with a good 30 minute rain shower. There was no restroom so it made the day very interesting! I have never been so dirty, sweaty and sandy in my life.

I have also learned to become a vegetarian in Vietnam. They make some amazing looking tofu. I ended my evening with yet another massage for 120,000 dong which I believe is about $8 USD. My massage girl walked on my back holding onto a pole.

Well, tomorrow is a 8 hour work day and up at 5am-goodnight!

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