Wednesday, July 20
I woke up, looked at my alarm clock and realized that I was due to be at breakfast in 5 minutes. I told the other girls to get up and apologized that my alarm didn’t go off. Amber told me that it had actually gone off and that I had just turned it off. I don’t usually do that so this gave me a bit of a clue into how completely exhausted I am both physically and emotionally. Today turned out to be a good day to be exhausted though because it was pouring when I went out for breakfast which meant that we didn’t go in to work today. We met for breakfast and then Amber and Damion went for a walk down by the water in the rain because the waves looked so incredible. Since my first day walking down by the water at our place I haven’t been able to go again and today I decided that it would be best if I didn’t go. I have been wanting to go for a walk in the opposite direction on the beach but haven’t felt like I have been emotionally able to take in anymore of the destruction on purpose, we are getting enough of it with everyday life. Jodie and I stayed back and tried to plan a trip to Laos at the end of this trip. After awhile Amber came back and told us that we really should come and see the water, so I sucked it up and went down. I don’t think I can exactly say that I’m glad that I went, but I do think that it was something that I needed to do. Today was probably one of the more traumatic days to go, but it was a good thing that I went.
When we got down to the beach I quickly saw that there was no beach left. Where we were standing used to be one of the beautiful white sand beaches, but now we were standing on black sand and dirt and debris. I’m not sure why the sand was black, but we guessed it was from all the garbage and debris washing in from the water. With every wave more and more things were washed in land and other things were washed back out to the ocean. The shallow waters were full of wood, bottles, Styrofoam and other evidence that human life had been taken. We saw many shoes, children’s toys, lots of shampoo bottles and q-tip packages that they must have given out at the hotels. The most disturbing things that I saw were all the shoes, especially the children’s shoes, a soother, and a stuffed dog that looked like it had been well loved. You can’t help but wonder if any of the people that these things belonged to survived the tsunami. We stayed out there for a long time. We took lots of pictures to try to show you the devastation, but I’m not convinced that the pictures do any justice. There were a few memorials set up as well and one was for a beautiful young girl. When we had reached our limit we walked through what had once been a resort and headed to The Well –a meeting place. We stayed there for a bit and then headed back for lunch. We were debating at this point if there was any point in going in to work now that the rain had slowed. Half of us decided that an hour of work was better than none at all, and the other half felt that there wasn’t much point of going in for an hour when we already had no work yesterday. I was part of the half that stayed back – my busted up shoulder really needed the break today after the intense massage I got last night in an attempt to fix it up for a few more weeks of hard labor. There wasn’t actually any work for the ones that went in so I was glad I stayed back. Amber and I decided that we would have a quick nap and then head over to the Tsunami Craft Center. 2 hours and many very strange dreams later we finally woke up and headed over. The Tsunami Craft Center is a great place. The local villagers make crafts and every cent of what is purchased goes right back in to that village. I asked the lady how successful this program had been and she said that it was successful far beyond her wildest dreams. When we came outside we realized that we didn’t have much time before the rains were coming again so we quickly hitched a ride. We weren’t quick enough though and by the time we got home we were laughing so hard because we were drenched. Tonight we watched a slide show of everyone’s pictures, did some shopping and emailing and are now relaxing in our room.
Last night we had a good night as usual. The funniest part was when Jodie and I were ready to head home in the pouring rain and we realized that we only had one rain poncho between the 2 of us. We decided that we would both use it at the same time and that is just what we did! My head went through the head hole and Jodie put her’s in the armhole. I have no clue how we made it home because we were laughing so hard the whole way!
Thursday, July 21 – Super Fun Day at the Work Site
At breakfast today Ineta and Gary were telling us about how they saw a cat playing with a scorpion. We were also talking about how the guys were keeping a pet scorpion and how they tried to feed it a frog yesterday. So, with scorpions on the mind I started my walk up to the meeting place and was walking a little too close to the bushes and was concentrating on other things when I bumped into a branch. Now, this branch didn’t feel like and ordinary branch, it felt like a scorpion stinging me (or at least what I imagined how a scorpion sting may have felt, although come to think of it it didn’t hurt at all, it felt more like a branch brushing against my leg!). Once I realized that it was just a branch, I moved over on the road to continue my walk and had a good laugh at myself.
We hitched in to work with Ineta today so she didn’t have to go alone and we got a bit of the scenic tour on the way in. When you are hitching in to work you don’t always get a direct ride into work. Sometimes it takes a few rides to make it all the way in (it is about a 25 minute drive), sometimes you stop to run errands on the way, and on days like today the drivers took us on a tour of another area that was devastated by the tsunami. This was an area what we hadn’t seen yet and we were all very quiet as we took this all in.
When we got to the work site we got to work putting the cement on the walls to get them ready for painting. I had to work left handed today because my shoulder has been acting up and I was surprised how well this worked for me. We have to neatly put up a thin layer of cement, smooth it out, and do this again and again until the whole wall is covered. Sounds easy enough, and even looks easy enough, until you try it! Then all of the sudden there is cement flying in every direction and by the end of the day you find yourself walking around with cement covering your arms, your legs, your face, your hair – basically everything. It really was a fun job though and I can’t wait until this part is finished because then the paint will go on!
Near the end of the work day the Thai men had to smooth out all the cement to make it look pretty so we were given a break. I took full advantage of this break and Let, one of my favourite Thai girls, and I did a photo shoot. Amber was our photographer and we had so much fun! I will try to post some of the pics on my website because I’d really like you to see these. We did the photoshoot in the house we are building using all the tools that were lying around and posing in tons of different poses and making funny faces. We couldn’t stop laughing! After the photoshoot I did some songs with some of the Thai kids, played a few games and then they were teaching us clapping games which were great. We ended up leaving work much later than usual today because we were having such a blast! Tomorrow there is a new team coming in to help on the work site so the houses will start going up even faster!
Oh yeah, one more quick thing. On the way home from dinner Gaan drove me part of the way on his motorcycle and because I was wearing a skirt, but even more because I wanted to try this, I drove home on the motorcycle like you see ladies ride a horse if they are wearing a skirt – with both legs on the same side. I saw lots of girls ride like this in Bangkok so I figured I’d be fine, but it was scary for both of us! Glad I tried that, but I don’t ever need to drive like that again!
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