14.04.10 Samoa Habitat for Humanity

We arrived on the Monday after travelling back in time and settled into our beds on the floor in the community hall along side the other team - there are about 50 people here at a time. Tuesday we started work in Poutasi and it rained heavily all day but was obviously still warm. Our first job was working on a Fale roof nailing on cyclone ties to the rafters and purlins so we hammered all day. I think one of my arms will look like popeyes when im done with four weeks, I will need to swap to left handed this week to even it out! We worked in a team alongside 4 others. On wednesday we worked on a concrete floor pour with about 15 - 20 others on another fale in poutasi. This was mucky hard work and with only a sprinkling of rain it was hot work as well. You have to get into the samoan pace of life to be able to work in the heat (which doesnt seem to vary that much between day and night) The wednesday evening is when the locals who look after us put on local food and a dance show for us. Unfortunately I dont think the egg sandwich lunch had agreed with many people that day so charlie was one of the first to get sick and the rest of us ( 20 odd) quickly followed suit :( Thankfully the bug didnt last long and apart from feeling a little weak the next few days we improved quickly.


Saturday was supposed to be a half day, we worked on the ablution blocks in Lepa which are a timber frame covered with weatherboarding and a metal roof. At three we finished and went for a swim in the sea and a bottle of villima (the local beer) So although we have been working hard - breakfast at 6.30 leaving the resource centre by 7.30 and home by about 4 - we have also been enjoying a dip in the ocean or the local waterfalls every evening. Sunday was church day and our group had to sing a song!! I hid at the back and tried not to make a sound.... Then charlie went to the sua trench, a swimming hole where you swim underwater to another hole etc and I went to Fushia waterfalls, and drove east of lepa to see some more of the coast, it is this area which has been quite damaged by the tsunami, some resorts are starting to rebuild but its amazing chatting to people, the levels of the beaches have changed because the wave swept away alot of the sand. A lot of the fale we are rebuilding are now higher up the hill because people dont want to be so close to the sea. One morning there was a small earthquake which shook the floor we were siting on, interesting for us but very scary for some locals I am sure.
 On monday I think we were assigned to more ablution blocks working alongside paul from christchurch. We have continued to do a lot of these this week and so probably next week we will be leading a team doing this with new people. I managed to hammer my finger on tuesday, it hurt quite a lot but now disappointingly the bruise isn't that big!
 We are having a great time and hopefully really helping people as well. The local people who we are building for are lovely and really want to cater for you, cooking lunch for us quite often, even though we get stuff brought to us. The have an excess of taro! An overrated potato thing slightly improved by coconut cream. It is funny spending so much time with a big group of people, I think we will be looking forward to spending some time on our own at the end of two more weeks!