Demolition Derby

Wednesday I was on the demolition team. We went to a site pretty far from base. In the morning I did a ton of sledging. The house’s first story was destroyed but the second story was intact so we stood on the roof, sledging it out. I just want to point out that the things we do on the demo team I could never in a million years do in the States without a significant amount of training. That being said, we then used a gasoline powered round-blade saw to cut the rebar and then used a pulley-and-rope system to bring the walls down. We came back for lunch – it was white rice and veggie mush (some sort of stew with various vegetables). Halfway through lunch break it stated to pour. Of course this doesn’t stop us from working, so we loaded up the tap-tap and made the long drive to our site and I got completely soaked head-to-toe on the way. The only part of the experience I didn’t like was having my socks and boots totally wet. So we worked through the afternoon rain and got a lot done. It was a little scary being on the wet roof, swinging a 16-pound sledgehammer. But nobody died.

Today I was out on the demo team again. We went to the same site in the morning to finish it off. There was essentially just one big wall and some roof left to bring down. In order to bring down walls, you have to fault them. What that means is you must sledge out the areas where there are columns with rebar and also sledge the bottom portion of the wall to create a pivot point so that the wall falls easily when you pull on it. So we took out the rest of the site and made a big mess that a rubble crew will have to clean up (hopefully not me – it’s a real mess). In the afternoon we got some more rain as we headed out to a new site. We got to the site, which was right near the rubble site I finished a couple days ago. Unfortunately the house was not in a conditioned to be demolished by our team – the roof was extremely sketchy so we couldn’t sledge from the roof, the columns holding the structure up were all weak and badly damaged so working anywhere inside would be dangerous, and the house is sandwiched between two other houses (one literally six feet away) so we couldn’t have anything falling and hitting the neighbors houses. Thus, the site was deemed too dangerous but a Bobcat will go to the site tomorrow and hopefully it can do some of the work safely. Since we couldn’t work at this site we went to another new site. All that was left of it was a big piece of roof that was at a huge downward slope. The team just sledged it out and it slowly came down. We finished the site in just an hour and a half. Because of the nature of the work tomorrow the demo team is nixed but instead I will be rubbling! I’m on a team that, at this point, is four people big but all four of us have been here for a long time and all get along so it should be a nice, intimate day of rubble at a new site.

At the moment it seems I’m developing a cold. It’s no big deal, just the sniffles and a little cough, but it highlights one of the downsides of large-scale communal living. Even though everyone tries to promote good hygiene and such there is often no avoiding the spread of illness. At any given time there is something new going around – usually either a cold or a stomach bug. But I have to say that I really like living with a lot of people in many respects. It’s a long way away from my single dorm room I had last year, but it’s nice. Sure you have zero privacy, but there are always people to be with and talk to. Now that I’m leaving in two weeks I’m beginning to reflect on my time here a lot. I’m really going to miss this place. But at the same time I’m really excited to come home. Anyways, I’m quite tired and I have birthday rubble to do tomorrow!

Have a good Friday!

Love,

Daniel