The morning came early and we started our half an hour van ride to the town of Veles, a town of 50,000 people. Habitat is building a number of multi unit houses and this project is going to be our worksite and “office” for the next two weeks.
We arrived at the site and got to work right away. A few of us worked on roof trusses, hammering and nailing while getting to wear tool belts(pretty cool), others worked with rebar which has to be stretched, some bent and some cut into pieces of certain sizes for construction of the floors and ceilings and moving earth (AKA- ROCKY dirt) around the basement to level the floor. Energy was great and everyone caught on quickly. As with every site we have seen on Habitat builds, a stray puppy seemed to be around, taking advantage of leftover food and drinks of water.
We worked alongside many construction workers who seemed to take quite an interest in joking around with us, teaching us swear words and we are trying to learn the Macedonian names. Our site manager was female, and another construction manager who returns this week is also female. Maybe this is why this 14 member team consisting of 12 females and 2 males did not seem to phase these guys who patiently explained things with signals and demonstrations as we lacked the Macedonian and they were not fluent in English either. Made for interesting exchanges ;-)
After a few days of low twenties temperatures, today seemed to be a day into the high 20’s or so. For a few that with working on top of a hill, the first sunburns have arrived. Same goes for the first injuries which everyone seems to be quite proud of. So far team members are sporting blisters from hammering and shoveling, nicks, splinters and a thumb nail which had a run-in with a hammer. It’s all good though, we are still 14 strong! :)
Pictures:
*Some group members nailing trusses together
*Moving dirt around in the basement to level out the floor. In Macedonia the entire family lives in the same house (grandparents, husband, wife and children). The guy wearing the blue pants and the man with the grey hair are father and son. They will be moving into one of the houses we are building with their wives and 6 year old son.
*Group pausing for a picture!
*View from the worksite- beautiful!
Way to go ladies! Great pics...looks awesome there. Post some pics of Chelsea doing hard labour....I'll only believe it when I see it ;) Enjoy the sun and warmth...we had a nice Saturday then back to grey yesterday and half of today...a little sun this afternoon...looking at more rain overnight and tomorrow...blah! At least it's warm-ish. Take care :)
ReplyDelete