On my way home!

About to board I Taiwan and want to share some final photos of the house!

We painted a mural with the family and other workers. This was our main team working on the house.

Here's the Americans of the team. 

These are the three families whose homes we worked on. We had a little celebration on our last day.

Tuesday & Wednesday

Yesterday we started the morning by visiting a local school for the Gobleg Village where we're building. The kids were excited to have us, we played a few games and saw the small and modest but nice classrooms.

At the site we spent the rest of the morning hauling bricks in the the hot sun. In the afternoon I sat on a high beam and finished row 10-11 of one room. The walls are pretty tall now!

For lunch the partner families helped prepare a meal we shared. The whole pig was pretty much eaten.

In the evening I got to do some shopping and then we had BBQ buffet at the hotel. Here's my favorite dessert from a chocolate museum and cafe we went to. I bought some cocoa powder.

Today the ladies were harvesting some flowers.

Sunday & Monday

Sunday we had 2 choices for activities: snorkeling or market, Buddhist temple and hot springs. I chose to do the day of snorkeling. One of my favorite couples from Chicago who are on my house team and in my van have an under water camera so hopefully I'll get pictures later. We saw a squid, dragon fish and lots of pretty coral. Even though the island we. Later to is a national park, it sadly had a ton of washed up garbage and some in the coral reef area. Snorkeling was overall great. We drove by a market on the way and in many ways markets are usually similar I noticed as I travel. 

For dinner we had Indonesian food at a place that also had a traditional dance performance. They are very expressive with their eyes, it's quite impressive.

Today (Monday) we did a lot of hauling bricks. The local women are very impressive and can carry 3 bricks to my 1, and they carry them on their head.

August 17 is Indonesian Independence Day so driving around we always see groups of children or men training to march on that day. The men groups will march 45 kilometers from 7pm to 7 am I the day (independence was in 1945), the kids do less. The practice in the street which is crazy if you saw how he people drive sure.

More building and weekend activities

Friday was my favorite day at the build site so far. I finally got to do more than tie wires or bend rebar. I painted the septic tank with cement, dug and hauled dirt to fill the foundation an we started to build walls with brick and mortar. Here's everyone at the end of the day. Our house is ahead of the other two. You can't see as many in the pictures but we work along side the family, neighbors and the staff from Indonesia's habitat site. We're learning a little Bali and Indonesian and are making small connections with the people. I really like the work team I'm on.

Today we got up early for dolphin watching, did a cooking class for lunch and canoed around a small mountain lake near the village we are working in.

There were a few over sides with meat that I'm missing in the picture. There's lots of seafood in Bali and the food has been pretty good, so far my stomach is doing well and there's enough variety to not get bored. Here's my favorite veggie lunch that was delivered to our work site wrapped in banana leaf.

I also tried some local fruit that was tasty- mangosteen and snake skin fruit.

The canoe was a dug out canoe from a whole tree and the two are attached. 

The building begins!

Yesterday we arrived in Lovina. Along the way we stopped at another Hindu temple on a lake. My hair was doing its own thing.

Then we visited the build site which is actually an hour up a hellish windy mountain road for our hotel. It's a small village , most of the people work on farms of hydrangea and oranges that they sell at market. Blue hydrangea are bought by Hindus who use them in their offerings/prayer. There's another team from Canada working on 3 houses and we have 3 of our own. They are at varying stages, mostly all just still building the foundation and digging holes for septic tank and well. 

Today I mostly twisted wires and shaped wire to build these long posts that will guide the mortar and cement bricks that will be placed next. Pretty easy stuff and not as tasking as those who were guiding the well. 

Our house has 5 puppies, chickens, kittens, and 2 cows. The husband and wife work along side everyone, including some over villagers who recieved a habitat home and are then required to help others build in their village. 

Later we return to our hotel for a quick swim in the pool (our driver told us the beach has poisonous fish) and dinner .