I’m sitting here in Kuala Lumpur on a comfy couch in front of a giant TV showing Olympics results while surfing on a remarkably quick internet connection with a belly full of Mexican food. It’s a far cry from the last three plus months I’ve spent in rural Sumatra hauling rubble, throwing rocks, knocking down walls, building houses and being generally dirty and sweaty working with Hands On Disaster Response but I think I could get used to it. While I think I’m ready to move on, I really had a great time volunteering in Sumatra and will miss it a lot.

Here’s a bit of a summary of my time there:

The Work

The first couple of months were filled with rubble removal, rain or shine. It was tough but getting behind a shovel and wheelbarrow again was an amazing feeling. The salvage part of the work wasn’t quite as inspiring but separating river rock and bricks from crumbling mortar and saving tin and wood from the roof was important to be able to give people some materials to start with to rebuild their homes. Leaving people with an empty concrete foundation and a pile of rocks and/or bricks was kind of a bittersweet feeling but seeing them use that space and materials to build shelters was very cool.

I had a few attempts at joining deconstruction teams to bring houses safely to the ground but it wasn’t my thing. There is far too much pointing at things and thinking involved for me. Plus being responsible to bring down a giant structure scared the crap out of me, to be completely honest. But we had a bunch of people who stepped up to lead the decon teams and pulling down unsafe buildings as a team was always an exhilarating experience.

This past month has seen us building temporary shelters with a really awesome design. Wooden frames are built, chain link fence is wrapped around the outside and thin layer of concrete is put on top to create the look of a concrete house with more flexibility and less weight to fall on people if there’s another earthquake. I love the design and I love working with concrete so it was great to be a part of this process. I also got to work on prefabricating the pieces for the wooden frame which meant fun with circular saws. I feel like a learned a lot of handy new skills beyond just being a wheelbarrowing monkey (although I do love wheelbarrowing) and these are things I hope to build on when I head to Haiti.

The People

I loved the locals I came into contact with during my time on the project. Our translator Rena is always smiling and giggling, our driver Hamdan is so quick to jump in and help out with anything, and Rose the cook busted out meals and washed laundry in record time. A bunch of Indonesians came through the project as volunteers and it was great to meet them all, especially Redha, our first and most frequent volunteer who helped whenever he could on his breaks from university. Arman was a great addition later in the project and he taught me the way of the concrete wall and it was just really inspiring for me to see this older guy with a family to show up for work each day. The ice cream men on motorbikes were two of my favourite people each afternoon and Welly the fruit shake master was a lifesaver next door with some refreshing fruity creations after a long day at work.

I have made a lot of friends through Hands On with my time with them in Bangladesh and Haiti and it was great to see a lot of them in Indonesia. There seem to be a bunch of us who follow the organisation around and these people have become a sort of family on the road for me and knowing I can count on seeing them each time I head to a new project certainly makes my choice to go a lot easier. I made a bunch of new friends on this project as well and I’m convinced that HODR attracts people with a certain level of craziness that means I will always have people around who I have something in common with.

The Culture

The community in Sungai Geringging is rural and religious and there were a few issues with us descending on them to help out. Drinking beer in town was outlawed fairly early on. Boys and girls had to sleep in separate places which meant the construction of the ‘man tent’ outside and a girls-only sweet deal on the inside. A group of volunteers unwittingly caused a near-project-ending incident by walking down to a river late at night in boy/girl company. Old guys apparently were against us from the start, no matter how good the work we did was. Signs were erected saying ‘Volunteering, yes! Christianity, no!’ and the powers that be were paranoid that we were there to convert them. The work ‘Christmas’ was banned over the holidays. And so on, and so on.

Yay to culture! Boo to having to tip toe around it and having it affect our ability to do work there. It was probably inevitable that we would screw up from time to time. Things have always worked out in the end, but there have been some stressful moments in between. On the other hand, learning about the culture in rural Sumatra on such an intimate level was pretty fascinating and something I’m grateful to have experienced, even though it frustrated non-religious me at times.

While my time with HODR in Sumatra is over I don’t have much time to relax with a flight into Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 15th. Between now and then the plan is to hang out with some volunteering friends in Malaysia before shipping off to the chilly UK to spend a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in London and Scotland. My ankle is still sort of screwed from when I hurt it a few weeks ago, my clothes are all gross, the cuts on my hands are still unhealed, my websites are neglected, and my bank account is hurting from expensive plane tickets but Haiti is where I want to be and, while two and a bit weeks between HODR projects could be a bit of a killer for my body and business, I can’t wait for the challenge.

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My good friends here with me in Indonesia knew before I did that I would be heading to Haiti instead of Pakistan… I just didn’t believe them at the time. Well I have just proven them right by booking one of the most ridiculous set of plane trips I have ever taken: Kuala Lumpur - London - New York - Haiti - Cape Town with a couple of side trips to Glasgow and home to Canada for 10 days each. Sorry about the carbon footprint thing.

In the end I guess I couldn’t resist the pull to head back to Haiti and help out. My motivations for previous volunteering stints have always been a bit suspect but this time around I really feel a responsibility to help out, even if just a little bit. This will be a tough one emotionally, I think. With the earthquake claiming more than 200,000 lives in such a small area, I am bound to come across endless stories of lost loved ones and grief. I’m not sure how I will cope with the whole thing but I will never know if I don’t go.

Strangely, my parents are dead set against me going back to Haiti, although somehow they were ok with Pakistan. I haven’t had a TV for months so haven’t seen any coverage of the quake and the only news reports I am getting are in print. It seems like, according to the Canadian media at least, things over there are bad with reports of rape and looting and fears of disease as the rainy season rolls in. From my personal experience I know that the media tends to make everything sound scarier than it actually is but in this case I’m not sure what to think.

I do have plenty of friends over there working in different capacities and all are safe and sounds and getting on with the work at hand. Several have been working with Medishare putting in 20 hour days in some very trying circumstances. The need for volunteers in support roles at their trauma hospital is huge and a couple of friends of mine have put out a plea for interested people to contact them. If you want their contact details, email me and I will pass them along, internet connection willing.

I will be working with Hands On for a fourth time and this time around things will be a bit different. They have already received over 5,000 inquiries about volunteering in Haiti (as a comparison, the Indonesian project I’m currently on has only received about 400 inquiries over the course of the project) and, as a result of the expected influx of volunteers they will have a capacity of 100 people at a time. If you want to volunteer with them you will have to submit your first and second choice for dates along with an application-style form. The project is due to run for a minimum of six months, check out their information page for more details. I’m locked in for March 15th until the end of May… maybe see you there?

I’m looking especially forward to seeing some of my Haitian friends from Gonaives as I imagine some of them will come up to volunteer for awhile. I’m a bit apprehensive of what I’m getting myself into but at the same time, I can’t wait to get there.

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It’s been a week since an earthquake hit Haiti, not far from the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. The internet stopped working here the day of the quake so I’m getting all of my information at once right now and it’s been pretty overwhelming: up to 200,000 feared dead, bodies being loaded into mass graves by front-loader trucks, the city of Port-au-Prince flattened and an estimated 500,000 people left homeless, desperate people looting orphanages, aid not getting through and on and on.

I left Haiti in March 2009 after spending five months in Gonaives, one of the most screwed up places I have ever been. Thankfully the city was unharmed by the quake and my friends there are all ok. Many have had family and friends of their own die in the earthquake and it makes me wonder how much misery the people of one country can take.

It’s not all completely bleak though and it seems like there has has been a huge outpouring of support. I’ve heard bits about Twitter donation campaigns raising millions, star-studded telethons in Canada and the US, massive media coverage of the quake, stories of survival, rumours of debt cancellation, and a huge aid effort attempting to get underway.

I’ve been through Port-au-Prince a few times on my way down to Gonaives and each time I stayed at St. Joseph’s, an orphanage for boys who have been abandoned by their families or rescued from slavery (mind-bogglingly, it still exists in Haiti). Seeing photos of the building - a beautiful place filled with artwork, plants, musical instruments and life - without the top four floors and reading about Bill Nathan’s close call is sad and sobering.

A few friends of mine are there already, some are on their way with medical teams and more here in Indonesia are looking for ways to get there as soon as possible. This disaster relief crowd I hang around with these days are an eager bunch. I want to help but I think for now it will be a cash only effort.

If you’re in a position to give, cash is what is needed so pick your favourite charity and please do what you can.

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Yesterday was my second Christmas Day spent abroad while working with Hands On and it topped the one in Haiti. Of course, last year in Haiti I spent most of Christmas day in transit trying to escape the country for the beaches of the Dominican Republic, but even that torturous journey on the back of a pickup truck with 20 people had a charming side.

This year’s holiday festivities were certainly a lot more relaxing but also a lot more covert. The community here is pretty sensitive about religion and some people are worried our goal in the community is to convert people to Christianity. In an effort not to stir up trouble, we’ve been banned from uttering the word ‘Christmas’ and have instead chosen to wish friends a Merry Holidaymas, Happy Day or even, my favourite, Happy C-word Day which just makes me laugh.

There’s a great gang of people here at the moment and on Xmas Eve we had a BBQ, sneakily drank beer, and turned the backyard tent into a dance party on complete with strobe lighting provided by our blinking headlamps. Xmas morning was mostly spent nursing a hangover with me surfacing from time to time to fetch the contents of my stocking or collect my secret Santa gift before retreating back to bed but I had no complaints. In the afternoon we all pitched in to create a not-so-traditional meal of pot roast, veggies, spaghetti with mushroom sauce and BBQ chicken topped off nicely with pastries and apple crumble. Xmas evening was spent nursing a food coma while listening to people sing along to the guitar and joining in with some out of tune contributions from time to time.

Volunteering is a great way to spend the holidays and I’m always impressed with how many people rock up for a week over Xmas and New Year’s to help out. In Haiti a big gang of people descended on us in late December and in Indonesia it has been the same but with people generally staying for three or four weeks. We’ve even had a family of four choose to spend their holidays working with us, coming all the way from Alaska. It’s a great atmosphere and I’m still loving it. We’ve had a recent influx of Indonesian volunteers too which is really inspiring as well.

Hands On started on this day five years ago after the Tsunami and, while this is a sad anniversary, it also makes me happy to think about how many people took action to do something positive in the face of devastation. I’m surrounded by some pretty amazing people here and I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to spend another Xmas with Hands On getting dirty and sweaty.

Happy belated C-Word Day everyone!

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I posted last week about wanting to raise $10,000 for a good cause and was bombarded with lots of encouraging comments with idea for the type of ebook I could offer. I’ve decided to follow the advice of several people and write an ebook on international volunteering. It makes sense since all of the revenues from the book will be donated to Hands On, an organisation that does disaster relief work all over the world with the help of volunteers. Plus it’s an area I have some experience in, am passionate about and the idea that I could help motivate people to volunteer is a pretty exciting one.

I’ve spent the past couple of days writing ideas down and I think I have a pretty good base for the book and I’m kind of excited at how well it’s going so far. Here are a few of the points I’m planning on including:

• Finding volunteering opportunities
• Finding an organisation that is right for you
• What to look for in a volunteering organisation
• Vacation volunteering/voluntourism
• Should you pay to volunteer?
• Living conditions and what to expect
• Paperwork and visas for volunteering
• Benefits of volunteering
• List of trustworthy free and cheap volunteering organisations
• Outline of the types of volunteering (disaster, construction, social, children, teaching, professional, farming etc.)
• Volunteering membership websites
• Volunteering scams to look out for
• List of resources on volunteering
• Interviews about people’s volunteering experiences

As I flesh out these ideas, I was wondering if any of you have anything else you would hope to read about. I’m completely open to ideas! I would also love to hear suggestions for trustworthy organisations… these sorts of things are best found by word of mouth and, while I have a good start to a list, I would like to come up with at least 50 suggestions. Plus I would love to chat with people about positive or even not so positive volunteering experiences as well as any initial fears about volunteering and what the reality was once you got there. If you’re willing to let me pepper you with a few questions, leave a comment or drop me an email.

I’ve spoken to the people at HODR, the organisation I will be donating the money to, and they’re on board and have committed to taking charge of the book’s distribution since I will be stranded in middle of nowhere in Sumatra for the next two months. Google donate some money each month to them to use in an Adwords campaign and they suggested setting one up aimed at creating interest in the ebook which would be great. I’m not sure how that would work but it would be interesting to try it out. Either way, having the use of their resources is a big bonus and if they are willing to send a plug out on their giant mailing list, that would be huge.

I guess the last thing for now is to ask about pricing. Do you think asking people to donate what they feel its worth is the way to go? Or should I set a $5, $10, or more minimum donation? I like the idea of asking people to donate a bit, and send the message on but I think that’s something I would aim more at friends and family. I think getting some bloggers on board and asking for a mention on their blogs will be key so if anyone is willing to allow me to do a guest post or even just give the book a mention, I would love to hear from you. Or maybe I will just start spamming you all once the book is out!

Thanks again for the support I’ve gotten so far on this! I’m pretty pumped now about the idea and I’m having fun writing it and looking forward to hearing some more of your suggestions.

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This is my third time volunteering with Hands On on their disaster relief projects and one thing has become clear to me in this time: I’m not interested in being a leader. I’ve successfully sidestepped any responsibility or leadership roles since Bangladesh back in January 2008. As you become a regular volunteer though, you inevitably get on the radar of the people who run the show and sticking to the grunt work I love so much and avoiding leading projects becomes harder and harder.

But when I was asked last week to co-lead a team on a satellite project, I couldn’t scam my way out of it. I accepted and spent last week living in a temporary village made up of people displaced by landslides. Their entire village has been wiped out and a whole bunch of displaced people are waiting for construction to finish on their new homes in wooden longhouses. They’re expected to be there for up to two years and Hands On were brought in by an Indonesian NGO called People in Need to help set up a guttering system to catch the rain so that people here will have water. A Czech NGO are also going to be setting up latrines and we will be participating in that program too once it gets going.

The community was great. We had plenty of helpers, many who seemed to be over 100, and most who could saw like… well, something that saws really well. Our team had six volunteers from HODR and we were helped by three guys from People in Need who let us do our own thing and figure things out as we went. We’re expecting to play a big role in the rain water program so being able to work things out on our own and figure out the best way to do things will help down the road when we’re doing it all ourselves.

Our team was great, the work was slow but fun and the only thing I can think of complaining about is the lack of toilets and having to slog it down a slippery hill in the pouring rain anytime the moment took me. Did I mention I have been having a dodgy tummy lately? I will let you work out for yourselves how much of an ordeal the toilet situation was for me but, thinking about it now, the whole thing was pretty funny.

The other thing to complain about is the massive amounts of durian located in this part of the world. The things were dropping from the trees. Motorbike were loaded up with them and parked on the paths. The market stalls in town seemed to sell nothing but this terrible excuse for food. The locals offered us a durian about 10 times per day and some of them found their way into our room on occasion. They are foul, horrible things. They don’t smell as bad as I expected them to but the insides look like fetuses, the outside is spiky and painful and the taste and texture is gag-inducing after only a small bite. But eating durian was something I had on my list and I’m happy to check it off and never, ever let that evil fruit darken my doorstep again.

Escaping the durian was easier said that done, though. After spending two days working on the rain catchment systems we waited on the third day for the latrine project people to show up. They were supposed to show up the previous day but didn’t and now, they had stood us up again. They eventually arrived at 1pm on Thursday but they had no materials and weren’t ready for us to get some work done. We had been calling home for a pickup for the two hour journey back to our base since 10am but the phone networks were inconveniently down for four hours that day. So we sat around on day three avoiding offers of durian, peeing in the woods, chatting, and admiring our new rain gutters. After about 10 minutes of that we were bored and were desperate to leave but we were stranded.

By about 6pm we were on our way home having had a great first two days, a frustrating third day and in need of showers and a good meal. Overall it was a great experience and I’m looking forward to heading back from time to time over the coming months. I’m still not too into the whole leadership thing but somebody needs to take these roles on and it’s about time I step up for once.

Down with durian!

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Hands On have been in Sumatra, Indonesia for a month and it seems like the presence of 40+ foreigners has finally gotten to this small community. I guess it’s difficult to lay low with so many people zipping around town on pickups full of tools and walking to and from town to get online and eat yummy things. We’ve been noticed in a big way and it’s not all a good thing, unfortunately.

We’ve had a few baffling semi-harassing encounters with the ‘Muslim Police’ who, we’re told, are completely separate from the regular police and are more like thugs than like law-enforcement. I don’t know the full story behind them but they’ve visited our house a few times with questions about how many Americans are in the place, accusations that we have been handing out Christian materials (ridiculous considering most people on the project are not religious at all), requests for money towards their vague aid projects and asking for the phone number of one volunteer saying that it is in ‘our culture’ to give out phone numbers willy nilly. They’re also paranoid that a bunch of donated goods we will be distributing contain covert Christian documents and short skirts. Actually, some of the clothes are unsuitable and have Jesus slogans but we’re ditching them before they hit the streets.

In short, these guys seem like a band of roving dickheads and the community seems to agree. The regular police assure us they have no problems with Hands On and seem to be  distrustful of the ‘Muslim Police’. We’ve also been asked to not drink beer on town, even though it’s openly sold there. I think this has more to do with women drinking beer than the guys, but we’ve all been banned regardless. It’s not a huge deal and I understand that locals probably feel uneasy about us womenfolk setting a bad example, but it’s still annoying.

Now the latest in the recent wave of religion-related requests, the community has banded together after a month to ask that we not have men and women sleeping under the same roof. Given that we only have one house, this would have seemed to be a bit of a problem. The comprimise has been to chuck all the guys outside to sleep under a big army tent in bunkbeds. Not ideal (although it’s actually a pretty good deal for the girls!) but it’s just another thing that needs to be done to appease the local community.

All of this has been really interesting for me. I would have thought Bangladesh was a bit more religiously hard core but, as far as I know, there were no issues there like we’ve had here. One rural community thought were were there to give them injections to become Christians but, besides that, it seemed like the community was on board with what we were there to do and if there was any suspicion, I didn’t hear about it.

But it’s been an amazing experience thus far despite the hiccups and I’m always curious to see what the next day will hold. Internet has been set up thanks to the installation of our very own tower to pick up a signal. So I should be in touch a bit more and will attempt to do a little bit of work while I’m here.

If you want an idea of what we’ve been up to so far check out this Day in the Life of a Volunteer video. So far so good!

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I’ve finally scored one of the four computers at an internet cafe in some tiny town I don’t know the name of after several failed attempts spanning four days. The kids here like to play shooter games which means that 30+ foreigners trying to get online have some serious problems doing so. But I’ve finally landed a computer and am sitting on the floor in some strange pink and light blue booth type thing, typing away while being surrounded by curious kids. Not exactly the best working environment but I figured a blog post was in order so I’m powering through.

So I’ve been on Project SG in Indonesia for a week and in that time I’ve done a lot of salvage work and a bit of demolition work. Unsafe buildings in the area have been marked with pink tags and they need to come down and that’s where we come in. We’ve been working in teams to safely bring down large concrete houses with even larger tin roofs sitting on top. It’s easier said that done and there’s a lot more planning involved in destroying things than I ever would have imagined. After the demo is done, salvage teams come in and attempt to save as many building materials as possible, right down to the individual bricks. This means removing tin carefully from the wooden roof frames, saving as much wood as possible, taking out windows and doors and chinking mortar off of individual bricks to create a stack ready to use whenever they get money from the government to help them rebuild.

At the moment many people have build rudimentary structures out of salvaged pieces of their concrete homes. Some are living in these and some are staying with friends or family but everyone is waiting for some money to rebuild their houses. Nobody seems to know when it’ll come but t’s early days still and people are confident they’ll be helped by their government. So right now, we’re concentrating on clearing their foundations and salvaging materials in preparation for a rebuild sometime soon, hopefully. The more materials we can salvage, the less people will need to spend on new materials when they are able to rebuild.

It’s the usual Hands On setup with a house crammed with eager and interesting people from all over the world. I’ve been able to catch up with friends from Haiti and meet plenty of new people and I’m loving it, as usual. It’s a different atmosphere than Haiti so far but people are still getting to know each other and this is the earliest I’ve ever been on a project. The lack of booze could also have something to do with it but Haiti was a bit crazy and I’m looking forward to a more low key deployment. The work here is also not quite as exciting and it’s hard to get pumped up about flattening someone’s home. Haiti was great because we were removing mud to allow people to move back in. Here we’re removing everything to allow people to rebuild but, in the meantime, they’re just left with an empty foundation and it’s quite sad to think about. But people are amazingly upbeat, at least on the surface, and they’re excited to have us there helping them. There’s more of a sense of community here than in Haiti which is uplifting.

The weather takes a bit of getting used to with one torrential downpour a day and no hope of drying clothes in the humid weather. It’s not fun getting soaked in the morning and getting to put wet socks and shoes on for the afternoon stint but I’m getting used to it. There’s also been a breakout of pink eye! About 12 of 30 people have come down with it and are walking around with red eyes. Everyone has developed a hand sanitising obsession so hopefully we’ll kick this soon. It’s sort of funny but I haven’t had it yet so I might not be laughing in a few days! Overall though I’m loving the experience here. The other volunteers are great, people in the community are wonderful, everything is super cheap, the food is delicious (so far), the area is beautiful, a lady next door makes delicious fresh fruit shakes and life is good!

I’m not expecting to be able to work at all for my first month here because I can’t bear coming back to this internet cafe more than once a week. When I go to Kuala Lumpur on December 5th though I plan to go into geek mode and work for a week straight. I will probably but an internet-enabled phone as well to bring back here.

So that’s the update! Until next time… whenever that might be.

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A few weeks agoI wrote that I was hoping to head to Iowa to do some volunteering in Cedar Rapids with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR). I love volunteering with this group and I was hoping to get a chance to work with them again sooner, rather than later. I think their plan was to pull a bunch of professional builders (volunteers) together with a bunch of wannabees like me to help out with rebuilding in the flood-damaged community.

Well that project has been postponed until the Spring so it looks like Iowa is out. But with all the disasters in the Pacific and southeast Asia, it looks like there could be another opportunity for me to get into some more disaster relief work. HODR have sent a team to American Samoa to see if they can hel pout at all after the tsunami there. They’ve also already assessed The Philippines but given that much of the damaged ares are still under water, there’s not a lot they can do just yet.

So the assessment team has moved on from The Philippines to Indonesia and they arrived in earthquake-damaged Padang today. Myself and other HODR alumni are anxiously waiting for the word that a project is being launched. It’s ridiculous, there are about 15 people that I know of that will be there in an instant and I’m one of them.

So Iowa is out but I’m hoping HODR will launch a project in Indonesia because, even though it’s nowhere near on the way to Africa (my next stop), I love working with those guys. So for the moment I’m checking the site daily, following them on Twitter and hoping the $515 flight from New York to Jakarta (via Alaska!) stays that price for another few weeks.

Check out their site if you’re interested in knowing more about their South Pacific Emergency Appeal and possibly helping out.

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I’ve been home in Canada for about six weeks and I’m starting to think about what my next move will be. This time around things are a bit different because I arrived without any escape plan. It’s been great not having anything set in stone for the next six months of my life but unless I want to still be sitting here in six months, I will need to come up with some plans and make some decisions on my next move.

Fortunately that decision was sort of made for me when I received an email from the folks at Hands On a few weeks ago. They were trying to recruit experienced tradespeople for a rebuilding project in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hands On deployed to Cedar Rapids last year for several months, helping out after the area was completely flooded and now they’ve managed to get a grant to help the community rebuild. I’m not an experienced builder but it looks like they’ll need some people to do the grunt work and that’s where I come in.

I’ve secured a spot and it looks like the project will be starting sometime in early October. This project should be really interesting since instead of tearing things down, we will get to build things back up! Much of the work after a flood involves ripping out the entire inside of people’s homes and it looks like now it’s time to do some repairs. Power tools scare the crap out of me so this could be an interesting experience.

Iowa isn’t exactly on the USA tourism trail and that’s exactly why I’m excited to go there. I didn’t even know where it was until a few days ago (although I also thought New England was a state up until six months ago, so my US geography isn’t exactly great) and I’m still not sure how I will get there but I’m pretty excited about it. If volunteering with Hands on in Cedar Rapids is anything like my other two experiences in Haiti and Bangladesh then it will be a guaranteed good time.

If anyone is in the area and wants to meet up, get in touch!

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