IV.

Total Hours of Volunteering: 48 Hours @ NOLA construction + 36 Hours @ Tulane Medical Center = 84 Hours

When I wasn't frantically/lazily studying drugs and their mechanisms, I was helping Habitat build houses and the nurses of the Neuro ICU with patient care (at Tulane Med Center).  I enjoyed both settings despite the stark contrast: unfinished, dirty, dusty house sites versus complete, bright, clean hospital unit.  The greatest benefits I reaped were the knowledge and experience: nothing really compares with going on-site and stumbling over my own ineptitude, then correcting myself.

Happy Holidays!

Tres.

Working on a roof for the first time is scary.

Harness for Safety from High Places

I couldn't stop from splaying on my back onto the particle boards that were nailed into place by previous workers.   Anything to lower the already increased chance of death by gravity.  The scared-for-my-life reflexes left dots of red all along the undersides of my arms and legs, evidently from the rough particle board biting to my skin whenever I had to move.

Hammer and nails.  Lots of hammering, and many nails bent and misshapen.  They were cheap nails, and I would say that given the amount of cheap nails we wasted, could we not have bought more expensive, yet more easier-to-drive-in nails?  A question I would ask every time a nail crooked the wrong way.

Maybe a good 5 hours before I could stand with confidence, and even without the safety of a harness—although the harness is on; others, including me, eventually gets too lazy at the hassle of adjusting the slack or changing the stationary support, BOTH OF WHICH IS CRUCIAL FOR IT TO WORK.  Too much slack, you'll just hit the ground before the harness could pull taut; and without changing the stationary point, you can imagine being the bob at the end of the pendulum swinging down, colliding with a ladder or two and forcing everyone's jaw to drop.

But there it is, some people have done it long enough to really not feel the danger of high places; and here I am, still scared but not enough to overcome the hassle of safety.  Is this not a major source of easily-preventable-accidents?  The extra effort hinders work.  If only safety came without effort.

Can't wait until we have anti-gravity boots or maybe some gravity-deployed forcefield, but would we still be building houses ourselves then?

Safety first.

Round Two.

It's all about the grass this time around.  Or the lack of.

Leveling the dirt, getting ready for the sod.

Drizzling rain, wet soggy mud, cold air and lots of shoveling.  A wheelbarrow would've made this job a whole lot easier, but our Habitat supervisor had just come back from break and missed dibs for the good equipment.  

However, outdoors was preferable to applying insulation or sealant in the attic of the house: surrounded by all the hot air of the house concentrated in one place without circulation.  Guys coming out from that job came out drenched, not by rain, but sweat. 

Trimming the front lawn, by shovel.

The shoveling of dirt lasted about 2 hours, and sodding took another 3 hours.  A house's gotta have a good looking lawn right?  We laid the sod in a brick pattern, tucking the sides to make seamless the patches-to-patches of sod.  Even the picture you see above looks like regular grass rather than whole bunch of patchwork sod.  

The result and all the players.

Visually satisfying.  Something about changing the brown landscape to green grass gives a feeling of accomplishment.  The next hours would be spent cleaning up this site and another site down the street.  A truss was laying by the side of a fence, it had to go: for that we took out a reciprocating saw (sawzall). 

Reciprocating Saw

Learning to use one of these was interesting.  Safety first: if not working at a workbench, you'll need someone to keep the object steady as you cut.  Always keep the safety-plate flushed with the object.  And always SAFETY GOGGLES.

Another fun day.

First.

Here's the first post for a lot of firsts.  First time volunteering for construction, on the first Saturday of September.  First time seeing lovebugs.  First time using a wheelbarrow.  First time sledgehammer.  First manual weed cutter.  First caulking.

Here is me caulking. 

Lovebugs loving. (1)

I seriously thought that caulking was "cocking": pushing the back of the caulk gun sounded like the cocking of a gun.  A load of jokes came from this.

Habitat for Humanity posted a group of us up to a house in the Hollygrove neighborhood of the 17th ward, which also happens to be the neighborhood where Lil Wayne grew up in.  The house was damaged by during Katrina.  When shoveling the dirt, oyster and clam shells would turn up, probably brought in by the flood.  The house was sold to vetted buyers that would also contribute 350 hours of their own labor to their soon-to-be home.  A sturdy home made by the hard work of volunteers of which I am now a part of.

Working up a good sweat.

The day was hot and many breaks would be taken as we worked to level off the dirt near the front of the house.  Mounds up to the knees were shoveled down to the concrete level.  We thrashed the overgrown grass in the backyard with manual weed cutters (we called 'em "threshers") which operated like a golf club.  We even happened to accidently thrash a wasp-nest, giving us a fright—no one was harmed.  Fire ant-infested wood scraps had to be moved, wasn't easy and a little scary.

Near the end of the day, last thing we did was put boards on the steps to the side-door—I got to learn how to use an impact driver power drill (the key is lots of PRESSURE).  All in all, enjoyable.  Day after, not-so-much enjoyable: soreness in muscles and bones I didn't think could get sore.

More to come...

-Kin Lam


Source:
1) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Lovebugs.jpg