Day 9 - There's a hole in my bucket

Day 9: Bucket mania!

Today began a blissful morning as wake up was at dawn, 5:45am wake up call and an unami (yummy) breakfast at 6am. We prepared ourselves for a long day of work, the moment we had been waiting for… pouring the second story slab, by hand. The area to be covered was about 15m by 10m, with columns 40cm deep on the edges.

At 7am we arrived at the IRC in hope to begin the concreting, however were met with the ongoing task of reo-bar tying and washing down the slab to ensure the concrete will stick. The carpenters continued to work very hard boxing in the roof so that the real work could begin. The cement mixer which we had hired was being looked at by the mechanic for its faulty nature caused it not to start. As this was the case the Filipino workers started to mix the concrete by hand, a method unfamiliar to Australian builders (hah). Work began with concrete so everybody re-applied sunscreen, or in some cases (Georgina, Drew and Josh) extra precautions to ensure their sunburn from yesterday didn’t re-burn. We also used a barrier foam witch would help our skin stay protected, rather than being split by lime-burns or flying buckets. Gloves, safety glasses, hats and off we went. Two bucket lines, one full one empty transferred endless buckets up and down the building.

By late morning we had completed the second part of the stair case and began the far back columns, it was very slow. We were wishing the mixer would have a burst of motion just to give us more work to do while the sun was still out. Our stone was supposed to arrive at 10am however being in rural Philippines, on a public holiday (Bonafacio day) I may add, things just don’t happen on time. Hand mixed concrete continued to flow gracefully up the ramp and many of the IRC kids found themselves helpful in a return bucket line. The kids kept our spirits high for the effort we put in goes to their cause; we wish to give them a home.

Back to the guest house for lunch where we all found that we ate so much to replenish our tired bodies and supply us energy for the enormous task which still lay ahead of us. We were waiting for the truck to arrive with the stone we needed to mix more concrete, funnily enough many of us watched out the window as it drove past the house. After lunch with no break we headed straight back to the IRC, where we found a still broken mixer. Really wasn’t its day. More barrier cream, sunscreen, hat and back to our lines, to the building from the hand mixed concrete. Some of the boys by this time had learnt their technique and helped out using shovels. This was messy job.

By 2pm the mixer finally sparked power and so did a new routine which was more efficient. These loads of concrete we much bigger and our little buckets were struggling to keep up, although Pastor Pete had also learnt a new technique from Ramil (bakery director), making large and sturdy buckets. They were very proud of themselves and through flaunting their new skill we found they were very good for making big heavy loads of concrete which made quite a difference to a patch of our task. The mixer shot out again and again, which was very frustrating however during the patches of fixing the missing bolts and making a new load we were able to have small breaks and have a treat of some fresh baked pandesal (bread).

With only about one fifth of the work done we had to continue until it was all finished. By his time most of us were drenched in concrete and in some circumstances concrete was over-taking the colour which once glowed in our shirts. With small breaks we poured and poured buckets upon buckets of concrete. Some injuries which consisted of lime burns and a small blow to the head (Abi) from a passing bucket. We are soldiers and on through the night we went. By about 6pm we reached half way and with much delight the amazing kitchen ladies from the guest house had made and delivered our dinner to the IRC. Delicious fried chicken, soup, salad and rice, they said it’s a well-deserved meal. We knew that we were not yet finished, after dinner we stormed on, into concrete pits and up to the roof. The job was not finished until 1:00am! With great cheers and a sigh of relief we thanked our Filipino helpers, said goodnight to the kids and headed off to the community washing station. We rinsed off as much concrete as we could and began to compare our wrinkled fingers and lime burns. We drove back to the guest house and quietly head into our beds. We fell asleep instantly with a joyful feeling of accomplishment.

We apologise for blog being late, however a 3am post would also be unhelpful I’m sure.

Abigail: Hey everyone at home, hope we are all well, missing you all heaps. I’m having so much fun and can’t wait to tell you all about it. Not long now, keep us in your thoughts. Jason I love you and miss you heaps! xxxxxx