Grass Skiing & Grass Sledding

(PICTURE: Grass Sledding)
I'm gonna shock you with something: It doesn't snow much in Vietnam.

You might be saying to yourself, "I didn't think it ever snowed." Well, I thought that too when I first got here but supposedly it has snowed in Sapa. However, that's clearly not the norm.

As a skiier, I wish there was more snow. Luckily though the Vietnamese are quite innovative and don't let the lack of snow stop them from skiing. Recently Huyen and I went to a resort with grass skiing and grass sledding. The "hill" for skiing was about twice the size of a speed bump so we decided just to go sledding. Check out the video of grass skiers and a grass sledder. The music you'll hear was what was pumping out of the stereo systems at the resort:

More Signs I've Put On Weight

(PICTURE: Look at that gut! Maybe I should wear bigger shirts.)
Not to keep harping on this but I'm getting chubby!

Three times in My Tho I had to get off an elevator because it started to beep. THREE TIMES!!!

Also the Habitat people asked me what shirt size I am. I told them large. They gave me an extra large. It was a hint that my shirts are perhaps getting a tad too tight.

Finally, as of writing this, I got my fourth flat tire on Huyen's motorbike. That's four flat tires in a month and a half. Do you know how many flat tires I had TOTAL last year? 3 ...yup, the same amount of times the elevator told me to get off because I was gonna break it.

Two Reasons To Donate To Habitat For Humanity

Here's two reasons why building a house for a needy family is totally worth the time and expense:
(PICTURE: The children who will be living in the house I helped build last week.)

My Habitat team finished working on the house and they sent me this picture:
It is pretty amazing that two weeks ago there was nothing but dirt where this house was. That's pretty cool.

Habitat For Humanity: Day 3

By the third morning all of us had blisters on our thumbs. An average person would have called in sick with such an ailment, but this crew was not average by any means. We pushed forward and continued to build the house.

Day 3 was all about laying brick. Everyone was given a tutorial on how to lay brick and then was put to work. The homeowner, who I've mentioned is a real life construction worker, was at least five times faster at laying brick then the rest of us. His rows of bricks also looked a lot neater than the rest of ours.

(PICTURE: Thy, my main habitat contact and Than, our habitat foreman.)

Right before lunch two local officials came to the site and presented me with a certificate and a letter. The certificate is from The Tien Giang Union Of Friendship Organizations and is for "Building the house for the poor people." The letter says, "Dear Benjamin August, on behalf of the Tien Giang Union of Friendship organizations. I would like to express heartfelt thanks for your recent contributation of time to the volunteer building house in My Tho City from September 13rd to September 24th* 2009.
Together with another volunteer you offered helpful and exciting hours of building house for poor people. We are grateful for energy, enthusiasm and dedication you bring to your role as a volunteer.
Once again, thank you very much for your efforts and contribution of time for the Tien Giang Union of friendship organizations to help make our community better and better."

Although the certificate says I built till the 24th, I actually only built till the 16th. This is the same certificate everyone else got who built to the 24th. It's like I got a diploma after freshman year in college!

It was really hard to leave the build after just a few days. In 72 hours we had made so much progress on the house and I wish I could have stayed till the end. However, it just wasn't in the cards this time with my schedule. The experience though was absolutely fantastic. Working with great people for such a great cause is rewarding to say the least. I'm hoping that next year when I'm back in Vietnam I'll be able to organize a team build with people living in Hanoi.

I'd like to just say thanks again to the team at Habitat For Humanity for being extremely helpful and organized. I'd also like to thank Thomas and Elizabeth, the team leaders, and all the other members of the team, for letting me join their build. Finally, I'd like to once again thank the 70+ people who donated money towards the upcoming building of our house. Thanks again!

Habitat For Humanity: Day 2

(PICTURE: The heaviest load Marla had to wheelbarrow.)

I woke up on the second morning feeling pain in approximately 29 different places. The most irritating place though was the heat rash that I had on my right bicep. I showed Katie, the designated medic from my group, the rash and she brought me over to see Marilyn, the medic from the other group/real life nurse. Marilyn bandaged up my bicep and I was good to go...despite being mocked by a few people for having inadvertently shown off my totally awesome bicep.

There was a lot to be done on the second day:
- Removing the wood planks from the foundation.

(PICTURE: Me doing basically nothing as Katie crow-barred the hell out of the wood planks. My sleeve is rolled up because Marla, a Harvard graduate from both undergrad and business school, told me that it would help my irritation. She said it was the way girl lacrosse players wear their uniforms. You can't argue with that.)

- Building columns...which meant more cement making.
(PICTURE: Ian and Sheila were doing 99.9% of the lifting on this one.)

- Bending rebar. Don't feel bad if you don't know what rebar is. I had no clue prior to this build. Click on the link to read about it. Basically it is the meal put inside columns to help strengthen the columns.

- Removing nails from wood.

- Sanding wood.

- Filling in the foundation with dirt.

- Pounding the dirt to make the foundation stronger.

(PICTURE: A dirt pounding tool.)

- Putting up scaffolding.

(PICTURE: The end of Day 2. Progress is being made!)

The one problem with the build was that we were building during rainy season. It rained for a little while on the first day and then just down-poured on the second day. Here's a little video of the rain coming down on the family's old house as well as some shots of our site:

Habitat For Humanity: Day 1

In fourth grade I ran for Mount Pleasant Elementary School student council president. I gave a speech that started off something like, "As we all learned from Lethal Weapon 3, a building needs a strong foundation. Well, just like a building, the school needs a strong foundation." I think a building was blown up in that Lethal Weapon hence the reference. If this horrible speech wasn't bad enough, my competitor, Noah Lichtman, did a rap. Yup, he kicked my ass and I won the default prize of student council treasurer. If I learned one thing from myself that day it was that I should never reference Mel Gibson in a political speech. If I learned a second thing, it's that a building does indeed need a strong foundation.

On the first day of the build, my group laid the foundation for the house. This basically required a heck of a lot of cement making. To make the cement was a very scientific recipe: 5 buckets of dirt, 8 buckets of gravel, one bag of cement mix and then enough water to get a mud cake-ish consistency.

(PICTURE: Paul from Arizona and Amy from Bermuda even out the foundation.)

After about fifteen minutes of shoveling ____ (insert rocks, dirt, combination, etc.) one starts to realize that there are muscles in the back and arms that one hasn't used since, well, perhaps ever; one doubly realizes this the next morning when they wake up.

(PICTURE: Sherry from Washington and Katie from Colorado fill up the gravel bucket.)

In the morning when we arrived at the site, I noticed something right away -- our materials were quite far away from where we were actually building. The majority of our bricks and piles of dirt were at least 40 yards from where we needed them to be. I was surprised at this since in theory the truck could have dumped the supplies right at our build site. The explanation was that the alley was too narrow for a truck to go down, but having lived in Vietnam for a while now, I didn't buy it. I've practically seen a bus drive on the sidewalk in Vietnam so I think they just dropped our stuff far away so we would have to work harder and sweat more. Well, if that was really the intention it worked. We basically spent the afternoon lugging wheelbarrows of dirt to the site. In case you're curious, when using a wheelbarrow you also start to realize there are muscles in your triceps area you haven't used since, well, probably ever.

My favorite thing about the first day is that the soon-to-be homeowner was working right besides us. The man happened to be a construction worker which meant he was basically the point-man while building. We would hand the man our buckets of cement and he would pour them into the frames he had constructed. By the end of the day -- despite a good two hours of waiting out the rain -- we had finished pouring all the cement for the foundation.

(PICTURE: Our progress at the end of the first day. The man wearing green in the home owner.)

Some other highlights from the first day included:
- Sweating an obscene amount while handling concrete mix. I'm lucky I was able to take my shirt off at the end of the day.
- Visiting a chocolate "factory" while it rained. There was a farmer nearby who grew a fruit used for chocolate. He then made chocolate bars which he sells to supermarkets. He even showed us a chocolate magazine he was featured in.
- Managing to go a few hours before getting a blister on my thumb and a heat rash in my bicep/armpit area.

Habitat For Humanity

(PICTURE: Letter of thanks from habitat.)

Habitat For Humanity's motto is, "A world where everyone has a decent place to live." Thanks to the 70+ donors who sent me money, one family will soon have a better place to live in Vietnam.

I say "soon" because the money that everyone donated did not build the house that this and upcoming blogs will be about. The money we collected will go to build a new house for a family in a few months. Habitat will be sending me updates about the family who will benefit from our donation. As Habitat keeps me posted, I'll update the blog.

As much as I would have loved to build the house that our money will go to, the timing just won't work out since I'll be in Japan. Frankly though, it's a good thing that I don't build the house since habitat will be hiring contractors who I'm sure will do a better job than I ever could. Oh, one other cool thing about the house that will be built with our money: I'm 90% sure it will have a sign on it that says something like, "Donated by Benjamin August and Friends." Next time you're in Vietnam you can go and see the house that we helped to build!

I must admit, besides being told how much money was needed for a house, I was kind of naive about the whole Habitat process. This past week opened my eyes to how it all works as much as it did about home building. The group I joined was led by Thomas and Elizabeth, a very nice married couple who have done many builds before. As the team leaders, Thomas and Elizabeth had been in contact with all the people on the trip for quite some time. I felt a little bad jumping on their team build but they were more than accommodating. The rest of the team were individuals from around the world who, besides a pair or two, didn't know each other until the day they met up at their hotel. The group was filled with smart, friendly and dynamic people from various backgrounds and countries. Granted I was only with the group for four days, but I was extremely impressed by everyone. I guess that is what you should expect from people who are willing to use their vacation time and hard earned money to build someone else a house for two weeks.
(PICTURE: Team Elizabeth and Thomas. Habitat gave us these hats on the first day...I think I was one of two people to actually where it during the build.)

On the first day of the build, the group was divided into two teams in order to build two different houses. The group I was with built a one story house for a family consisting of a grandmother, her son, and his two children. Apparently the man's wife had left him and he was raising the children by himself. The family was living in a straw/thatch house right next to where we were building them their new house brick house. After seeing the neighbors house which was made of metal sheets, I made a comment that it was like the story of the three little pigs: there was the straw house, the metal house and soon to be a house made of concrete and bricks...

(PICTURE: The family's thatch house on the left. The foundation for their new house is on the right.)