Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve written a number of articles about Habitat for Humanity in Kuching. What volunteers tell me got me interested, so I enlisted the KuchingBloggers.com to get together for an experience to blog about.
Frankly I’m disappointed by the response. The friends-of outnumber the actual KB.com members. But whatever lah. I had fun. And those who gave it a chance did too, or at least came and found that it’s not their piece of cake. But I counted 6 out of the 12 who want to do this again.
Anyway I’m sure most of us didn’t expect to accomplish what we did at Kampung Senibong.
We measured and cut reinforcement bars (rebars) the size of your index finger and pinky!
…with shears this big! (Nice gentleman not included.)
We played with power tools!
(Or at least, they did. I just took photos.)
We bent rebars into rectangle rings!
…At some point with our hands, yo. (Maggie and Gladys were so particular about getting it perfectly straight, it was hilarious.)
We were very happy with our work. I mean, geeky mouse potatoes like this bunch. Who would have thought?
So what previous volunteers said are all true.
- You see your work come together before your eyes.
- You completed feats you never imagined you could accomplish.
- It’s an awesome way of spending time with friends and meeting new ones.
- You go away knowing that you played one small role in a big task. I mean, building a house. Dude.
Other little revelations include:
- You realise that you have a really good life. You have more than two rooms in your entire house and a flushing toilet, right?
- Some people managed to stay really clean, while others were grubby from head to toe by the end of the day.
- Bending rebars is quite therapeutic. Kinda like sewing but with more muscle groups.
- Some of the girls may look tiny but they actually quite strong.
- We did so much by lunch time. On a normal weekend, I’d still be in bed by lunch time!
Here are the other peeps who went (can’t find all the links. pls comment with your url.):
Here are other entries about this outing:
[...] last Sunday for a half day build. She’s been wanting to come along ever since I blogged about my first trip, so I’m glad she finally made [...]