Habitat for HUMANITY Project

Last Saturday, Han, Wei & me volunteered ourselves to join tChyang's company to help with the Habitat Humanity Project..the project is about helping people in certain areas to build their house..they cannot afford to buy new house and at the same time not qualified to buy low cost houses, so they were given land and will build their pwn house...however they need experts and also manpower to help them build their house as they surely cannot build it by themselves..this is where HABITAT project comes in...

so three of us and tChyang's boss, Mr. Wee together with his 10 collegues, set off to join the project...for your information, currently, they are working on a house at Batu Kawa, the project (building the house) is carried out everyday and volunteers are welcome from time to time to join the construction...so the 14 of us gathered at Dong Guan coffee shop at 3rd mile around 730am that morning..we had breakfast together before we headed to the site..

we reached around 830am..we can already see the walls of the house with window and door frames...there to welcome us is Mr. Eric Yap..a very friendly and cheerful contracter...at first, we don't really know we can do as is sort of like our 'first time' building a house!!haha...but Mr. Eric with his warm smile and his funny way of talking made us very comfortable and began to pick up things that we can do...

everyone had gloves on and a straw hat..haha...it was a hot day as usual...we divided ourselves into several small group of four...and tChyang led our group as we were required to make two frame boxes of 2ftx2ft for the base to build the toilet...haha..we were measuring, hammering and trying our best to make a firm and steady box..haha...despite a few nails pointing out, i really want to say that we did quite a good one...haha..

1,2,3~up!

Yeah yeah~ volunteers VS architects..haha...

but the fun just began...then we all gathered to do the pilling..after that we need to 'hit in' 6 long woods into each of the squares..haha...forgive me for all the terms..im still missing some of it...=p the pictures will tell the stories better..

First, we had to use a parang to sharpen the end of the wood so that it will be easier for us to 'plant' it into the soil..but only for the first 30cm.as you can see the wood is so long, to get it totally 'planted' into the soil we need special weapon..haha...here comes what we called the "Dong Dong" (because it makes the loud sound "dong dong dong" everytime we hit it against the wood)...hahah...im not sure what is it exactly called...hmm...=p

out of the 14 of us..only three girls went..one of them is a UTM architectual student, Doreen who is doing her practical with 4 other coursemates at this particular Architectual Firm-DNA..the other one is Shu Zhen and of course, me!haha..we also get the chance to try out the Dong Dong...hye, girls can do these work too!!look, Shu Zhen did a pretty good job on the sawing...haha...i dong till my straw hat drops!~

tAKE 5!! hehe...the weather was so hot and everyone was sweating non-stop!!but it felt real good!! the house owner, a lady was busy preparing drinks and food for us...she made plum juice...it was so tasty!!haha...it was really thoughtful and nice of her to prepare all those food...there were watermelons and pisang goreng too!~hehe...four of us took pictures together...not all the time you can see us with straw hats oh...haha....

Look! the two squares are almost done...now we had to mix cement and pour it into both of them..too bad i was not in time to take the photos when we were mixing the cement..haha..we were going like a merry-go-round in order to mix the cement well..haha...thanks to Mr. Eric, he showed us how and kept making jokes and made us laughed..same goes to Mr. Wee...a reporter came to interview Mr. Wee about this Habitat project and Mr. Wee kept teasing us that we looked extra hardworking because there is a reporter..haha..everyone was really enjoying!!!~

There you go!!we made the square..built the frame...do the piling...mix the concrete and VuallA~ & i was the one who smoothen the surface of the square..hahaha...good job everyone!!~

It was almost 12pm when we finished the two squares...haha..it took us almost 4 hours just to get the 2 squares done...but everyone really put in efforts to complete them!! before we went off...GROUP PHOTOS!!

not ready??

say cheese!!

one more one more!!~

smile everyone!!

Happy boys and girls!~

It was a well-spent morning!! although we did get sun burns but we all felt very happy that we were part of the construction..it was a really nice experience and im sure Mr Eric will see us again very soon!!

so for those of you in Kuching, those who are still in school or already start working..if you feel like you would like to give a hand and take part in this project, don't hesitate and feel free to contact Mr Eric Yap at 016 868 5619 and make full use of a day or two of yours!! it is really fun and interesting to get to learn new things and meet new friends!~ for those seniors for boy scouts or even red crescent, we felt that it will be good outdoor activities for those members to participate in the project...it can be in a small group of 8-10 people...it is a good opportunity, so don't miss it!!~

Lovely Saturday!~cheers! DUAPAO!~