Monday, August 01, 2005
MONDAY AUGUST 1 UPDATE
We completed our first build day today. I guess that winter in New Zealand produces some really strange weather. It will be pouring rain one minute and then all of a sudden the clouds clear and it's steaming hot! Well, the whole day was like this even before our work started at 8:30 a.m. What was really neat was seeing a full arc rainbow as the backdrop for the devotion provided before we started.
Well, we learned today that there hasn't been a family chosen yet for the house that we are building. HFH has been trying to gather enough interest for houses, particularly one that are being built on Maori land. There is a lot of distrust and no support which poses a problem for the application process. In fact, we drove by the site where our house will be "transported" to after it has been built. We were warned not to get off the bus because that area is controlled by drug-dealing gangs! Yikes!
So, we are building our house on the parking lot of a local college. All components have been pre-cut and basically we are assembling the pieces into a large puzzle. We are following a "tri-panel" model which means that we are not using wood frames. Today, we managed to put up all the outside walls, the inside walls and the ceilings. It's raining really hard right now so I hope that the ceiling is holding up okay under the water.
I have been getting to know my team quite well. We are an interesting collection of individuals from different experiences. But it seems that we are all connected by a common desire to do good. Most people here are teachers, so it's been great hearing about the different stories that they all have to share. I thought that these next 2 weeks will be a hiatus from my physical training. It turns out that there is another triathlete here and a few of us have been running each day that we've been here!
Until the next update!
Well, we learned today that there hasn't been a family chosen yet for the house that we are building. HFH has been trying to gather enough interest for houses, particularly one that are being built on Maori land. There is a lot of distrust and no support which poses a problem for the application process. In fact, we drove by the site where our house will be "transported" to after it has been built. We were warned not to get off the bus because that area is controlled by drug-dealing gangs! Yikes!
So, we are building our house on the parking lot of a local college. All components have been pre-cut and basically we are assembling the pieces into a large puzzle. We are following a "tri-panel" model which means that we are not using wood frames. Today, we managed to put up all the outside walls, the inside walls and the ceilings. It's raining really hard right now so I hope that the ceiling is holding up okay under the water.
I have been getting to know my team quite well. We are an interesting collection of individuals from different experiences. But it seems that we are all connected by a common desire to do good. Most people here are teachers, so it's been great hearing about the different stories that they all have to share. I thought that these next 2 weeks will be a hiatus from my physical training. It turns out that there is another triathlete here and a few of us have been running each day that we've been here!
Until the next update!
# posted by Duffshot @ 4:49 AM 
