Charlie 1's first few days - by Emma

Guest blog from Emma Ballantine – Charlie 1

Live from the project site…

We arrived in the Muttilmoola tribal village three days ago and were welcomed by the villagers with flower garlands. The village is gorgeous and is set out on three layers and looks out over tropical forest and tea plantations. We thought that we would be staying in a school building so got a bit of a shock when we found that the girl’s bedroom is basically a bamboo mud shack with no door and lots of holes to welcome the snakes into our boudoir! The boys put up a six man tent and the girls quickly made themselves at home by putting tarpaulin on the floor and hanging mossy nets and a clothes line.

Above: the camp buillt by Charlie 1

The villagers and masons have been working so hard and have laid the foundations for the seven houses that we are helping to build. Because the village in situated on a hill, for the past few days we have been moving massive bricks from the top layer to the bottom so that the bricks can be cemented into the houses. We are right in the heart of the community and the villagers have helped us form people chains to move the bricks down. Because the work is quite hard and monotonous, we have kept up spirits by singing, drinking the AMAZING Indian tea and playing with the village kids (who are so cute, but very shy). So far we have moved 3000 bricks into the village, but have many more to move as each house needs 700!

Above: playing with the local children

Some of us have also worked on the house sites, cementing bricks and we all took part in a traditional blessing to mark the first door being cemented. The blessing symbolised prosperity and good health.

The local food is really good and Ruks has even managed to score us some chicken! We are gradually getting used to the mud (which is EVERYWHERE because of the rain) and the spiders, apart from some (cough cough Charlotte). Tomorrow we are having a welcome day off and heading into town to do some shopping and visiting a tea plantation, then it’s back to work!