The Building Part
Our primary mission, is to build a new school compound, in place of this.
It looks like it is going to fall apart when a strong gust hits it. When the last flood hit the area, the water was as high up as the where the window is. If you stand inside the building and look up, you can see the sky through the roof peppered with missing tiles. Might as well, since that is the only source of light for them. So, a new school is definitely a must for them. And the business of construction, should be better left to those in the construction business.
It is a short 15-day stay at the village, we needn't expect to erect a proper building in such a short time. And anyway, our building is already more than halfway done when we reached there. Although we had ten plus people at the site each time when there was work to do, our productiviy was less than one Cambodian worker. We were candidly mocked at when we formed human chains to pass quarter buckets of cement.
To prevent readers from painting a rosy picture of our 'huge' contribution, I got to add that we spent 4 to 5 days waiting for the contractor to give us the go ahead. Then we spent another 2 to 3 days carrying the cement buckets (which I reckon, will only take the workers 1 day, max) up one storey. And another 3 days to wait for the cement to set. And another 3 days to wall up and plaster the insides. Then we spent the last day doing last minute painting to the walls. Adding them all up, total working days = 7. This is a picture of us in front of the still-yet-to-complete school on our last day there.
It looks like it is going to fall apart when a strong gust hits it. When the last flood hit the area, the water was as high up as the where the window is. If you stand inside the building and look up, you can see the sky through the roof peppered with missing tiles. Might as well, since that is the only source of light for them. So, a new school is definitely a must for them. And the business of construction, should be better left to those in the construction business.
It is a short 15-day stay at the village, we needn't expect to erect a proper building in such a short time. And anyway, our building is already more than halfway done when we reached there. Although we had ten plus people at the site each time when there was work to do, our productiviy was less than one Cambodian worker. We were candidly mocked at when we formed human chains to pass quarter buckets of cement. - It will only take one worker to carry one full bucket one level up, with the same speed that we will take to pass a quarter bucket up.
- We need to wear gloves, they don't need to.
- We drink a lot of water, they don't need to.
- We eat fairly lots, they are easy maintenance.
To prevent readers from painting a rosy picture of our 'huge' contribution, I got to add that we spent 4 to 5 days waiting for the contractor to give us the go ahead. Then we spent another 2 to 3 days carrying the cement buckets (which I reckon, will only take the workers 1 day, max) up one storey. And another 3 days to wait for the cement to set. And another 3 days to wall up and plaster the insides. Then we spent the last day doing last minute painting to the walls. Adding them all up, total working days = 7. This is a picture of us in front of the still-yet-to-complete school on our last day there.
posted by taxi taker at 9:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home