Hi guys:
I suppose this diary will get lost in the election diary shuffle but here goes anyway!
I'm not a particularly religious person but I kind of think it's more Christian-like to help the poor than it is to yell at the clouds and, you know, call President Obama a Nazi. So for the second time this year, I was off to build houses in a place a lot worse off than ours.
The house building was sponsored by Habitat for Humanity International, over 500 people from 12 countries participated in building more than 40 bamboo houses. Here's a little flyer with the details:
http://www.habitat.org/...
If you're interested in this, Habitat does these blitz builds in Nepal every couple of years.
By far, the largest contingent was the Americans but the Kiwi's made up a big group as well. One New Zealander put up a video web site that gives you a good idea what we were up to:
http://www.everestbuild.co.nz/
It never ceases to amaze me that a bunch of untrained people can come to a site and build a house in less than a week. The foundations were poured and the initial framing was done when we arrived but we did the bamboo "lathe" and plastered with cement then painted. Pretty amazing stuff.
You can have a look at my personal pictures here (view it as a slideshow):
http://picasaweb.google.com/...
I'm still pretty fatigued from all the travel and the manual labor or I'd write more details on the appalling living conditions on the one hand or the incredible natural beauty on the other. If anyone has any questions, I'll be around to answer for awhile.
Anyway, hope this inspires you to step away from the computer and all that modern stuff like 24 hour a day electricity and hot water and go see the world!
-Cheryl