Sometime early in the trip I made the rule: Every hand on a bucket. If you were one of the players in one of the many bucket lines this was important. Again, the task could have easily been a huge snore, but with all hands and eyes watching a bucket no one should have been completely bored with the bucket line duties. Everyone was to be included. Most of the time this was for me as I hated it when an empty bucket somehow cruised passed me while I was trying to pass a freshly filled bucket. For our second day on the worksite our construction supervisor managed to get it together and give us some real work to do for the day. Okay, so it mostly bucket detail again, but this time there was a lot of mud to transfer.

The mud was to head in two directions. One was behind the house on the back outer wall where there was a lot of spreading to be done and the construction worker back there was very helpful and friendly. The second destination was a room in the front of the house. The entire interior with the exception of the ceiling was to be covered in mud and the construction worker in this room was the complete opposite. All of the volunteers thought of him as some sort of madman. Grunting, slopping mud everywhere, and working quite furiously. No one was certain why this particular Tajik gentleman acted in such manner. We had our guesses though. Too many hands in his pot? Too many women on the worksite? Maybe he just had a few loose screws? The three volunteers that went in to work with him came out a mess. Mud on the hands, face, legs, lips, hair, you name it and mud was there. It was a sight to be seen.

In terms of highlights on day six that was really it. The workload was far too light for us at this site, but we continued wearing smiles and doing what was asked of us. Tomorrow would be the last day of building and a half day. I was a bit sad that there hadn't been more hard work days and a little relieved. I had to remember the first two were on the back-breaking side.

Filed under: Activism, Asia, Tajikistan