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Build, this 23rd

The grand total you awesome people raised for my HfH Birthday Fund is a cool RM500. You know how much you all rock, right? You rock a lot! Thanks for your generous donations, and feel free to steal this idea for a good cause of your choice!

Like Faith, who stole this idea as a way of celebrating her boss’s birthday. She and her colleagues mustered up RM515.83 for HfH!

So that day, the HfH fund got richer by RM1,015.83!

That’s easily the best birthday month ever. :-D

This is where I have to announce that I’ve offered to reorganise the Kuching affiliate blog. It’s still a work in progress. I still have a bunch of information and photos to process, and I need to establish a system that allows some contributor or co-maintainer(s) action. 

The first thing I realised is that I’m gonna have to read up on HfH for real now, not just enough information to gloss through an article or tell friends about.

Anyway, there’s a lot of backlogged stuff and a lot of interesting upcoming stuff, so it’s probably a good time to add that blog to your RSS reader!

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Time & Money Concludes

- Funds for HfH: RM420 -
Who wants to raise it to RM450?
(Collection ends at the end of this month.)

So Time and Money, or at least Time, has come to pass. On Sunday, 6 of us went to Emoi’s house at Kampung Senibong (went back, for 3 of us). Here’s the cast of characters:

• My good self – journalist, birthday girl (2nd build)
• Maggie - journalist, colleague, fellow book geek/dresshacker (2nd build)
• Paula – journalist, travel buddy to Gang Starz (1st build)
• Peggy – architect, chief dresshacker (2nd build)
• Henrick - architect, classmate at voice class (1st build)
• Robert - World Famous Writer (1st build)

As I suspected, it was pretty close to finishing. It’s no longer the skeleton of a house we saw on 31 Aug. Instead, we found this:

We got to paint the house. I don’t think it could get easier than that!

After introductions and signing the form, Eric put Paula and Maggie to work painting the undercoat on that bare spot of concrete you see in the photo above, and the whole back of the house.

Painting a house is something just about everybody’s done before, so there wasn’t much brain or concentration required. The two girls outside occupied their brains by being as loud as a plane crash with whatever it was they were discussing.

Meanwhile, Eric popped open a tub of peppermint ice cream paint for the living room. 

Once the paint’s been dispensed into paint trays, we got started with the living room. I didn’t take a photo of the finished work, but rest assured, it is thoroughly peppermint ice cream green.

The four of us moved outside with a yam ice cream pale purple paint, covering walls Paula and Maggie worked on earlier.

At some point, someone wondered about all the other people who worked on the house. When I was about to snap this photo, Robert said, “A world famous writer painted this house.” He worked as a house painter before too!

We took a short break for lunch. Peggy actually bought a load of stuff so we didn’t have to drive off to find a cafe.

After lunch, we got back to work. Maggie and Paula finished off the undercoat for the back of the house.

House owner Emoi works on his back door.

Peggy got me from inside the house while I was watching Paula and Maggie, and waiting to get started with the purple paint.

She gets Henrick too, who is finishing up over on the side of the house.

Paula washed the brushes and rollers after we were done with the outside. Apparently they don’t get running water, so Emoi had to go draw water out of a well.

Eric gets Maggie started on the windows. Blue to match the roof.

Maggie and I comparing stains. Please note red circle.

Since there was a birthday involved, there was a birthday cupcake and birthday song. I had to make do with a cutting implement.

I snapped one last photo on the way out. Later on, I realised that the arrow on the sign pointed two ways. The next build is down the road from Emoi’s house. Work begins this week.

On the whole, it was another enjoyable trip. We talked too loudly and laughed too much, but it made time fly. Oh, and we also hatched a couple of projects. This is what happens when creative people are stuck together for hours.

I also can’t believe how fast this house came up. Has it even been two months? It’s quite exciting to know that Emoi and his family will be able to move out of their two room shack and into a nice and proper 2-bedroom house.

To those who came, thanks for your company and help! To those who wanted to come but couldn’t make it, there’s always a next time. To those of you who generously donated, I’m thrilled. Thanks so much. I almost wish the money was for my personal funds! ;-)

I had more to say when I started, but I kinda forgot how to do this blogging thing.

More photos here.

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Time & money in action

Get involved!

I suspect it’s too late by now to sign up for tomorrow’s build, but I’m still accepting donations until the end of October.

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HfH Quick Update

It’s September and this means one thing… my birthday is next month!

It is my firm belief that people should not give me random stuff. There isn’t anything I really need right now, and while tokens are nice, it creates clutter. There’s stuff that you need and there’s stuff that sits there because people give it to you without thinking if you’ll actually find that useful. I’ve written about this topic here.

There’s no need to buy me dinner either. As you can tell, I feed myself pretty well.

I do have some very specific requests if you want to give me stuff, but for this year, I have a very special birthday celebration in mind:

We’re going to go help build a house.

Regular visitors of this blog knows that I’ve been somewhat involved with Habitat for Humanity. Talking to volunteers and writing the articles made me want to experience it for myself, so I signed up for a build. I won’t say the work was all that hard for a bunch of city kids accustomed to the easy life, although it was hot and you get covered in smudges of known and unknown origins.

But if you can put up with that for one day, then I’m gonna tell you that you need to try this at least once. If you are not sure this is your thing, slap on the sunblock, put on your old clothes, pack the hand sanitizer and give it a shot. Do it to see if you are capable of bending a reinforcement bar with your bare hands, or to carry long beams of wood across the yard. Do it because you’re helping a poor family get a hand up in life.

Do it to challenge yourself. You think you have a hard life? I know people with DSLRs that cost more than a typical homeowner’s shack and everything in it. Look beyond your own life and pleasure for just one day. You may find something that surprises you.

So here’s how you help – time or money.

“Time” is where you sign up for a build.

Date/Time: Oct 19, Sunday / 9am-4pm
Location: Kampung Senibong, Singai, Bau.
Transport: Car pooling, pls volunteer your car. Passengers reimburse you for petrol and/or buy you lunch.

19th is a month from now, which should give you plenty of warning and enable you to arrange your schedule to fit me in. :-) Money donations are not required if you are volunteering. You need to get to the site and get your own lunch already.

“Money” is what you contribute if you can’t (or won’t) go. Everything will be donated to HfH to go into their house building funds. How much? Think about how much you’re willing to chip in to buy me a nice dinner. Or lunch at my favourite chicken rice stall, if you’re cheap.

The funds are important because they will always need money to start the next house. When HfH builds someone a house, it is not a handout. Home owners are still required to pay HfH back for the house, but in installments that they can afford. Getting the full cost of a house back will take a rather long time and they can’t rely on the repayments to fund the next build.

If you are interested, you can reply to this post (leave your email) or contact me directly at the address on the sidebar. Those of you on my Friend List on Facebook will be getting an event invitation shortly.

If you have questions, feel free to post them. I (or the nearest HfH volunteer) will be happy to answer.

If you’re not in Kuching and want to help out anyway, you can send money (contact me for my bank account number) or see how you can help at a nearby HfH affiliate or animal shelter.

If you’re not even in Malaysia or South East Asia, DO NOT send me anything. See if you have a local HfH chapter or any Non-Profit Organisations that could use a hand. I’m particular to groups that help animals (cats and turtles) and any local group similar to HfH. But the needs of your region may differ from mine, so this is entirely flexible.

By the way, my birthday is on Oct 21. I’ll be turning 31. Yay, I’m old!

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Time and money