Monday, Habitat Build Day One:
What an amazing first day!
If there's one thing I love, it's a big, delicious breakfast & that's definitely one thing we all got to enjoy today. (At our hotel, there's everything from omletes, chicken sausages & chocolate milk to sushi, fried rice & miso soup. You want it? They've got it. + Pastries and banana bread and bread pudding.)
With full bellies and eager bodies, we piled in the van to drive the 45 minutes to our job site. Eric (our leader who works for Habitat for Humanity and is from Indonesia) and our van driver, Agung, maneuvered the streets of Batam filled with numerous daring mopeds (sometimes driven by an entire family of five! --There are BABIES riding on those things!) until we arrived safely. It was neat to get to see some of Batam out the van windows as we were driving.
Walking down the road to where we are building was one of my favorite parts of the morning. Last night, Eric gave us a booklet that has a page full of helpful words and phrases with their Indonesian translations. One of them is "good morning." We all walked passed the houses with colorful clothes hanging on their lines and families sitting out front together saying, "Selamat pagi!" They smiled and returned our good morning greetings.
After a quick group photo in our white hard hats and yellow Habitat gloves, it was off to work! We dug, and wired, and rebarred, and cut, and twisted, and hoed, and shoveled, and wheelbarrowed, and mixed, and poured, and SWEAT... a lot. Batam is HOT and HUMID. And we were working hard! :) Today's tasks were digging holes, rebaring, clearing the reddish dirt/clay/rocks from the building site, placing the rebar, + mixing & pouring the first round of cement into the previously dug holes now filled with rebar and cement.
I think everyone's favorite part of today was getting to interact with the people. The locals. :)
For lunch we had chicken and rice and veggies AND fish that the future owner of the house's wife, Sandra, brought down for us to try. It was pretty tasty (as long as you're not opposed to eating food that looks very similar to how it did when it was still alive.) Sandra wasn't asked to supplement our lunch, but we could see she was glad to do so. After we ate, we got the chance to interact with some of the kids a little bit-- tossing disc, jump roping, and trying out our Indonesian. "Nama saya Addie." (My name is Addie.) + we're still working on "Siapa nama kamu?" (What is your name?)
When we were finished with our tasks for the day, we got to play with the kids some more. Throughout the day, a few kids and adults would gather here and there to come watch us at the worksite, and by the end of the day there were a whole bunch of kids waiting and ready to play. We blowed bubbles and hung out & then brought them up to the big red dirt "field" so we'd have more room to play.
On our way up, a woman stopped Rachel and I to ask Rachel if she would touch her pregnant belly. She said her baby liked her. She was so excited when Rachel pat her stomach & blew some bubbles as a "blessing" for the baby. It was so neat to see!
We had a blast playing with the kids! Soccer, hacky sack, high fives, laughter-- we were all loving it! At one point it started to pour and we all just kept playing. :) While we were playing hacky sack, we practiced our counting in Indonesian: Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima... (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
When it was time to leave, the kids all put their hands on the windows and the side of the van and ran after us as we pulled away.
For dinner we went to a place called The Golden Prawn. It's a HUGE restaurant where you have the option of choosing your lobster or fish or other seafood personally. We went with a family style meal that included rice, spicy shrimp, broccoli & shrimp, fish, egg drop soup... and more. It was an interesting experience.
I made it to 9pm & it's time for SLEEP! Good night all! :) --Addie
What an amazing first day!
If there's one thing I love, it's a big, delicious breakfast & that's definitely one thing we all got to enjoy today. (At our hotel, there's everything from omletes, chicken sausages & chocolate milk to sushi, fried rice & miso soup. You want it? They've got it. + Pastries and banana bread and bread pudding.)
With full bellies and eager bodies, we piled in the van to drive the 45 minutes to our job site. Eric (our leader who works for Habitat for Humanity and is from Indonesia) and our van driver, Agung, maneuvered the streets of Batam filled with numerous daring mopeds (sometimes driven by an entire family of five! --There are BABIES riding on those things!) until we arrived safely. It was neat to get to see some of Batam out the van windows as we were driving.
Walking down the road to where we are building was one of my favorite parts of the morning. Last night, Eric gave us a booklet that has a page full of helpful words and phrases with their Indonesian translations. One of them is "good morning." We all walked passed the houses with colorful clothes hanging on their lines and families sitting out front together saying, "Selamat pagi!" They smiled and returned our good morning greetings.
After a quick group photo in our white hard hats and yellow Habitat gloves, it was off to work! We dug, and wired, and rebarred, and cut, and twisted, and hoed, and shoveled, and wheelbarrowed, and mixed, and poured, and SWEAT... a lot. Batam is HOT and HUMID. And we were working hard! :) Today's tasks were digging holes, rebaring, clearing the reddish dirt/clay/rocks from the building site, placing the rebar, + mixing & pouring the first round of cement into the previously dug holes now filled with rebar and cement.
I think everyone's favorite part of today was getting to interact with the people. The locals. :)
For lunch we had chicken and rice and veggies AND fish that the future owner of the house's wife, Sandra, brought down for us to try. It was pretty tasty (as long as you're not opposed to eating food that looks very similar to how it did when it was still alive.) Sandra wasn't asked to supplement our lunch, but we could see she was glad to do so. After we ate, we got the chance to interact with some of the kids a little bit-- tossing disc, jump roping, and trying out our Indonesian. "Nama saya Addie." (My name is Addie.) + we're still working on "Siapa nama kamu?" (What is your name?)
When we were finished with our tasks for the day, we got to play with the kids some more. Throughout the day, a few kids and adults would gather here and there to come watch us at the worksite, and by the end of the day there were a whole bunch of kids waiting and ready to play. We blowed bubbles and hung out & then brought them up to the big red dirt "field" so we'd have more room to play.
On our way up, a woman stopped Rachel and I to ask Rachel if she would touch her pregnant belly. She said her baby liked her. She was so excited when Rachel pat her stomach & blew some bubbles as a "blessing" for the baby. It was so neat to see!
We had a blast playing with the kids! Soccer, hacky sack, high fives, laughter-- we were all loving it! At one point it started to pour and we all just kept playing. :) While we were playing hacky sack, we practiced our counting in Indonesian: Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima... (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
When it was time to leave, the kids all put their hands on the windows and the side of the van and ran after us as we pulled away.
For dinner we went to a place called The Golden Prawn. It's a HUGE restaurant where you have the option of choosing your lobster or fish or other seafood personally. We went with a family style meal that included rice, spicy shrimp, broccoli & shrimp, fish, egg drop soup... and more. It was an interesting experience.
I made it to 9pm & it's time for SLEEP! Good night all! :) --Addie
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