Today was a really great day – I finished my first project as team leader! The morning was, again, stressful before leaving as I was running around making sure we had everything and such. I got to the site with the group, which included a few people rubbling for the first time, and did tons of shoveling and wheel barrowing all morning and finished with about 45 minutes to spare. Like yesterday there were tons of kids and other locals watching and running around near the site so I did have to constantly have to ask them to move off the slab we were working on. But we finished without incidence.
I had a nap after lunch and woke up groggy. One of the teams already at a site needed a bunch more people so my group split up and went to two different active sites. I went back to the team I usually work with and got to go to an awesome project. Most of the team did rubble clearing while the rest (myself included) did some demo (demolition) work. Usually a site is classified as either rubble or demo/decon. This site had some of both. Demolition means there are dangerous things going on and there are usually hazards – for example, a site with a roof or high walls or something else when specialized things need to be done. In our case there were a bunch of walls needing to be taken down. I learned a lot about the process – I got to help use a pulley (or “come along”, rather) to bring a wall down and did some precision sledging. So it was a lot of fun. Now I’m back on base and tired as usual. The executive director of HODR, David Campbell, came to the base today. Apparently he comes down here about once a month and then returns to the US to fundraise and all that.
Every 30 days Hands On requires that volunteers take a mental health break somewhere off base for a few days so I’m starting to seriously plan for that. I really want to go to the Dominican Republic so I may do that. I want a room with AC and something to eat other than rice and beans. I’m not being too demanding so I’m sure I’ll be able to find some accommodations to suit my needs.
Tomorrow I’m staying on base to help out doing some infrastructure work around the house. It should be pretty interesting and now that I’ve done two days of rubbling I want to rest my back (part of my process of easing my back back into work).
Hope everyone is doing well!
Love,
Daniel
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1 comment:
I'm still amazed about your team-leader position! So awesome. Congrats on finishing the project!!
Do you guys wear hard-hats or any kind of protection on the sites or do you just go for it? Some of this work (demolition in particular) sounds dangerous.
That's phenomenal that you guys are required to take the mental health day. You all deserve it, and it's probably the best way to keep volunteers happy and willing to work with HODR. Dominican Republic... wow, that's cool. How many options to you volunteers have? can you go basically anywhere? HODR pays for it?
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