Build A Home

I kept debating with myself on whether or not I will post something about this, but seeing as we will need to make an article about it later in the semester, I thought might as well. It would be better to write about it now, since I still remember most of what happened, instead of later where I could, most likely, be straining my mind for details.

If a lot of you don't know yet, our NSTP class requires us to 2 fieldwork for the semester, missing one means an incomplete on our final grade, so really, required. The first was in Bataan to teach basic math to 2nd graders(as I have mentioned in a previous post), and the other was a trip to Tarlac for house construction, one which was destroyed by typhoon Yolanda.

The call time was the same as before, 7 am, but we didn't leave until it was like quarter to 8, again, same as before – I was a bit frustrated because you know, I woke up early for this okay, my sleep is precious. Anyway, the drive there was surprisingly fast(reminder: Sunday mornings are the best time for a drive), and arriving early means starting construction early. So we brought out shovels and trowels and sacks of cement, hollow blocks, and I-don't-know-how-much liters of water, and went on our way to the site.

Our adviser told us during the ride there that, originally, the class was supposed to work on two houses but reverted to working on only one of them, for reasons I think I forgot, but thank goodness they did because we wouldn't have done much if we worked on two. It was a little chaotic because the class was comprised of, more or less, 54 students, and we were all fussing about on the site, not knowing what to do because there was too much of us to work on a single, solitary house barely the size of my bedroom; everyone was everywhere and there wasn't enough room to move, so we kind of just bumped into each other ever so often.

We did manage to make a wall(5 lines of hollow block, but a wall still) before the rain started falling, and we had no choice but to go back to our bus and have an early lunch break. Once lunch was through, we went back to the site to finish up. A few more cement was mixed, hollow blocks piled on top of walls, a clean up of the site, and then we're on our way home.

Even though a third of the time I was just sitting down on a stool watching from the sidelines, I can honestly say that the work I did manage to do was exhausting(shoveling is hard you know, especially if the sun is beating down on you). Most importantly, those few hours of hard labor weren't for nothing – a home for someone who lost his.

I think I finally get what this NSTP class is for.