Diary Excerpt 3

Carrying the bricks for 500 houses:

It was a wet morning and all the women volunteers squeezed onto the bus, which headed to the nearby area where the houses are being built. No transport can reach the house sites due to there being poor access and flooding after the monsoon. This area after the tsunami hit was totally devastated, hardly a house stood. Now the foundations of new houses are in place.

The night rains had cooled the air and subsided. We filled carts high with bricks. It is not easy work, and the large stacks of bricks by the road would have been daunting to some. Once filled, we wheeled the carts along the winding paths and ankle deep water-logged areas under the canopy of coconut trees. It was a long morning, 6 hours until lunch, then the afternoon and evening shift began. The work doesn’t end; it carries on, and will carry on until all the houses have been completed.

To see and help with this work you appreciate the unbelievable effort and selflessness that goes into building even just one house.

- Radha

To find out about the tsunami relief click here.