So Day 2 and Day 3 of construction have been interesting. Mixing and pouring cement for the floors. On day 2 I had a sick Swiss man (Mick) with the Flu who is staying elsewhere, he is probably around 60, a Dutch girl (Sam) and myself to pour cement. There is a Chinese girl (Koh) Our days are 9am, leave accommodation, 10-12 work, 12-1 lunch, 1-2:30 work, 3.30-4pm get back to accommodation.

First thing in the morning we visited a completed school which allowed us to see finished construction. This is the 3rd school Wan has done. He made the comment he had 50 people for this school and you can see the quality isn’t as good. This makes a good point about the feast and famine of volunteering – he made a reference that the professionals who do the plumbing, roofing, electrical are paid for through donations while the volunteers to the easy work. Unfortunately a lot of easy work is cosmetic.

Mick made a good suggestion to put gravel down before cement that Wan (our Thai Foreman) agreed with. It took us the 5 hours to fill in one segment of the flooring and to gravel the next segment.

Mixing cement takes 1 50kg/110lb bag of cement, approximately 15 buckets of sand, 5-6 buckets of water, 5-6 buckets of stone (to make it STRONG as Wan says).

At this point I should mention that the Thai professional construction people pretty much ignore us, we’re just white volunteers…. Lea (the lovely German lass who did this a couple of weeks ago) said they haven’t had much do to do with any of the groups.

So the bags of cement are about 50 feet away and as mentioned they are about 110lbs. I walked over, picked one up put on my shoulder and walked back. All the thai professional workers just stop working and are staring at me. The Thai people are small – it takes at least 2 of them to move these bags. After that they come over and offer me a snack and with some translation by Wan – I pick up the lead Thai Man. Everyone is like……wow. He tries to pick me up. No luck there. They helped us for 10 minutes plane the concrete because they are rockstars compared to us :

At this point they ask me if I could help with a hole. So I do (Wan goes are you sure), yes sure. Sam jumps in as well. The hole is for a sewage containment for the dorm. I get about 3 feet down and 3 feet diameter wide. The Thai professionals spell us for a bit and bring us soda’s for helping them. I think that because of the machismo culture the fact I’m so strong compared to them has broken the ice.

Several volunteers have mentioned that it doesn’t look like the Thai professionals are busy. What it actually is I’ve determined is that they work in very short intense sprints, which makes sense in the heat and then rest.

In the Evening we did the night market again. For me this is really an opportunity to shop at 7-11 and get some drinks.

Lea and several others have Labeled me the “Talker” – it’s no surprise – they say they are too. But when Lea’s father apparently goes… is that the talker…. its a little off putting. Oh well. I am gregarious…. So far no complaints. Lol

Day 3.

So Mick is sick, Sam has to leave back to Netherlands unexpectedly, so it’s just Koh painting, Wan and I to finish the remaining floor. Today is a half day so we only have 10-12 to pour the same amount as we did yesterday. We completed it. The Thai construction workers still nodded and joked with me. After they realized they couldn’t compete in strength, they showed me their traditional tattoo’s which are hammered in and asked me if I was going to get some….. lol

Today is a half day so I went to the shopping mall and got myself a thai massage – the choices are the swimming pool or the shopping mall. It was interesting to grab bubble tea on the way back to the accommodation. More interesting that it had to be taken from the bear’s mouth 🙂

Tonight is the barbecue night which after grilling with gas in America is a step down I feel or I am just lazy when it comes to grilling. I believe that is probably true.

I should probably point out that the ratio of girls to boys is a huge amount of boys. Lea told me it was worse in Bali, 20 girls and no boys. One accomodation had 40 girls and no boys.

All the girls here and us discussed this tonight – and its the common experience. There are very few male volunteers.