I feel like I have been given a crash course overview of Kuching, Malaysia and the Habitat for Humanity affiliate office here. I cannot say anything negative about my experience here, well except for the heat, but everything else exceeded my expectations.
On Saturday morning, I arrived at the build site for Law Moi Nui’s family, and was joined by a team of young architects from DNA, an award winning local firm. We were promptly put to work twisting wires to position steel reinforcement bars for concrete support posts.As a person who has a strong perfectionist streak, it was a very good experience to be completely out of my element. First of all, it was hot and sunny and there was no shade (already starting with the excuses). Then the thoughts of a collapsing house began running through my mind (thoughts of it being my fault, that is).
In the two seconds it takes me to loop a wire around the steel bars, sweat is already dripping in my eyes and I have made a mistake. The concern I have about making a mistake is that I know every single wire that I break and make unusable is a cost to the homepartner, a small cost, but still important to remember and more pressure to do it correctly the first time.
After a few minutes of struggling with my wire twisting, Mrs. Law (the homepartner) arrived to lend her assistance. She was much better at everything too! I have to say that the best part of my day was when I was able to interact with Mrs. Law. We did not speak the same language, but it was interesting to still be able to communicate and relate to someone without words.
Before I had met Mrs. Law, I was already impressed with her story. She and her husband work very hard, but do not have the income to support their four daughters and also own a proper home. Habitat Kuching learned about Mrs. Law and her family while building for her next-door neighbors.
Her neighbor’s house had burnt down one morning and they were left with nothing except the clothes on their backs. All material possessions were lost, but the family was safe. The family was safe because Mrs. Law had noticed the fire and had rushed to the neighbor’s house to alert the children sleeping inside and brought them out of the burning house. You may read about Habitat’s efforts in raising funds to rebuild the neighbor’s house on the Wordpress blog and Flickr website, under “Dapat Anak Ajek”.
I am so glad that there is an organization like Habitat for Humanity in Kuching. Mrs. Law helped her neighbors at great personal risk and it’s just wonderful that she is now receiving the assistance she needs in order to provide a better place for her daughters to grow, blossom, and break out of the cycle of poverty. For those of us who grew up with safe and comfortable homes, it’s easy to ignore that there is poverty housing and that this is substandard and unhealthy. For the few hours of work and few kilos of sweat (not an exaggeration I am sure) I put into making those support posts, I can say I gained much more by learning about this family and working side-by-side with someone like Mrs. Law.
In my next blog post, I will talk about the wonderful things I saw in and around Kuching. If you are thinking of becoming a volunteer, do check this site in the next few days…
– Amanda Newcomb
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 4:03 am and is filed under People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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