Day 3: First Day on the Work Site

Today was our first day on the work site for Habitat for Humanity Cluj.  We met for breakfast at 7:00am and departed for our site at 7:45, a routine that we will be getting used to this week.  Breakfast in Romania consists of lunch meats, cheeses and breads, along with eggs, pastries and cereal.  We had a lot of team members building their own egg sandwiches this morning.  

When we arrived last night our volunteer coordinator Anca, shared that we would be working along side another team throughout this week.  The team hails from Northern Ireland through a program within their high school led by teachers David and Diane.  We instantly hit it off with the Irish team members and are having fun learning about their culture, customs, and slang.  Here is all of us at our work site first thing in the morning - before all of the sweat, dirt and sun.

When we arrived at our work site, we were issued hard hats, gloves and given a safety orientation.  Shortly after, Vin, our site manager, reviewed our projects for the day.  Our main focus was around preparation for building of the second story.  We had to mix and pour some concrete, and build additional rebar forms.  Here are some pictures of us in action!

Kylie, Sam, Logan Daniel and Michael cutting various sizes of rebar to use in the forms.

Mariah, Zoe and me removing concert forms from the first floor of apartment 4.

Courtney and Cassie bending rebar for the external structure of the forms.

By the afternoon our rebar prep was ready for assembly.  

Quotes from today:

"I love the Northern Irish Team.  They are so much fun to be around!" (The Northern Irish students wanted to know if high school in America was similar to how it is on TV and in the movies.  We explained that it was much more dull.)

"The food has been delicious."  (Our lunch deserves its own blog post so I will work on that.)   

"The physical labor has been more fun than I thought it would be.  It is nice to see how much you can accomplish in a day."  

"It is wonderful to be with awesome people, all with positive attitudes.  Everyone just keeps smiling even when dusty, sunburned and tired."  (It is hot and humid here.  It was around 90 degrees today.  We took a lot of water breaks and sunscreen breaks but most of us left the work site pink.)