Hands Down, an Amazing Experience

I went into Project Bohol with no expectations. I wasn't scared or anxious, which surprised my Nanjing friends. Why be nervous? I have a mom for that. I was just excited.

(For those of you who need to get caught up, Project Bohol is a program run by All Hands Volunteers, which provides aid to areas affected by natural disasters, both in the US and abroad.)

The work itself was really, really cool. Before the rebuilding can start, most families still need dangerous structures removed from their property. There were three main types of services All Hands provided for families while I was there: safe-ing, decon (deconstruction), and rubbling. We chose which "team" we would be on for the day the night before, in a mad dash to sign up on a giant white board. The sites started off with normal names when I first arrived ("Church," "Kitchen," etc.) but as my time went on, the site names became a lot more sassy ("Kissing House," "Run, Chicken, Run," "Tiara")

Safe-ing was by far my favorite, mostly because I enjoyed playing tug-of-war with an unstable house. Safe-ing involved assessing how to safely take down the house (hence the name!), setting up props to hold the house while we work, weakening the house little by little, then pulling down the house with well-placed ropes.

How a house ready to be "safe-d" looked on arrival

Decon was a close second. From de-tinning the roof (taking out the rusty nails, then throwing the sheets of tin into a pile), taking apart the wooden structures, and sledgehammering the foundation and low walls, this job was just a whole lot of labor (and a whole lot of fun!)

Before...

And after...

Rubbling was my least favorite, and I pretty much avoided it most of the time (except when it was sneakily mislabeled as "Decon.") It just involved shoveling rubble created by an earlier team of sledgehammers into a pile. It hurt my knees and was not very exciting.

I just wanted to sledge. All day every day.

My new calling

What made this work so much different than my previous rebuild work was that we barely had any tools, and none of them were electric (insert sneaky "donate money so we can buy more tool!" ploy: here.) There would be times when all we could really do was shovel rubble, but we only had two shovels for a team of six. One time, I was on a team de-tinning a roof  and we had run out of hammers and crowbars. Our oldest on-site member, who was in his 70s, resourcefully started de-tinning the roof with a shovel, by placing the shovel under the roof and using it as a lever to pull the tin off. I've hammered with a crowbar, sledged with a regular hammer, and removed nails with a sledgehammer. And besides that, most of what I did was just with my hands. The best advice I received the whole time I was working with was, "Ditch the tools. Use your body." I literally kicked down doors and karate-chopped wood* and it was a lot faster than using tools on it.

And the people. The people.

The people who were working on the All-Hands site were amazing. Even though the campsite often felt like a revolving door, with new people coming in and people leaving all the time, most people were long-term volunteers. At eleven days, I felt like I was one of the shortest stays (or maybe I just wanted to stay longer!) A lot of people were backpackers, doing a year (or five) on the move. Many were people who quit their jobs and came to the Philippines to work indefinitely. And quite a few of the people who came around the spring festival were teachers, from all over Asia, spending their vacation time philanthropically with All Hands. I feel like I am a pretty well-traveled person, but I was by far the least experienced traveler of the bunch. I loved hearing their stories, and I've now added about a hundred new places to my travel list.

Additionally, all the volunteers were really supportive on-site. I am not the strongest person in the world, nor am I the most experienced, but that didn't matter. No one ever made me feel stupid, or insisted they take over a job I was doing too slowly. The team leaders on safe-ing sites always involved the whole group in the process, no matter how much experience we had. I felt comfortable speaking up, asking questions, and giving my input. They were also really understanding of my knee injury, and a bunch of team leaders actually forced me to take breaks, because they knew I would've powered through despite any pain or discomfort.

And, like I mentioned in my previous post, the people for whom we were doing the work, the most important part of this experience, were incredible.

I could go on and on about how meaningful and personal the experience of actually working on the houses was, as compared to sending money to an organization. (Although to be honest, most organizations need money more than they need physical labor or other types of material donations!) I could tell you the stories I heard, of family members lost and harrowing escape tales. But instead, I'd like to tell you about one thing in particular that always struck me.

We've all seen the pictures of what the affected areas of the Philippines look like right now, but I was there. I looked at the shacks people were using as make-shift homes. I saw the scrimping and saving. I saw the fear and the worry about the future. Where would they live? How would they live? I can't explain how I knew, but I got the impression they were living day-to-day. It was indescribable. But no matter what, without fail, the homeowners always provided us volunteers with snacks. They would buy liters of Coca Cola and store-bought chips, or make us fried bananas served with frighteningly yellow energy drinks. Often, they would crack open coconuts and, after we had drank the milk, would make us "nature's spoon," a flat piece of coconut skin we used to scrap off the coconut meat. One homeowner made us soup. Another served us candied, grilled potatoes. So many of the homeowners were living in what I would consider poverty, yet they still treated us like guests. I feel like that anecdote, moreso than any of the other experiences I had, sums up the love I felt for the people we helped, and the love I felt from them.

Delicious snacks!

Chopping the coconut for us

But here is the hands down (no pun intended) best part of my experience: 

Jeepney!

Every morning we piled into jeepneys, trucks that would transport us to our project sites, and every evening they brought us back to camp. And every morning, we were greeted by the local people the whole ride there, and every evening we were ushered home with cheers and yells as we passed by the makeshift homes. Kids would run out of their houses screaming "HIIII! HIIII!" I will never forget the sound of their voices, getting louder as we approached, then disappearing as soon as we passed by.

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

I started every day with a grin on my face, and ended it the same way. Nothing is a better indicator of happiness than a smile being the first thing, and the last thing, you do every day.

View from a project side. What's not to love?

Also, PS for anyone who thought the idea of me sleeping in a tent was "unrealistic," I proved you wrong! Spent the entire time in a tent, save for one night that I had to be indoors, because there was a baby typhoon (!)

I know I wasn't able to discuss everything in this blog post, so post your questions in the comment section below! Want to know what I ate at the campsite? What my favorite project was? Average day's schedule? Ask me a question and I'll be sure to respond...

Want the story behind this photo? Just ask!

And don't forget, you can still donate to All Hands! Click here to donate today :)

*I didn't actually karate chop it. Usually, I twisted the wood until the nail popped out. But let's not split hairs here... or pieces of wood...