Yesterday was the opening day of our hygiene station. The team made its way to the school a little early to interact with the kids. Once the team got there, we found a tent set up to host the opening ceremony. After the team got to play with the kids for some time, the opening ceremony started. The hosts introduced our team to the crowd and then the program was followed by speeches. Dr. Ferron and Sai gave a speech and then the principle of the school addressed the people. Following the speeches and the opening ceremony, the school conducted a traditional Thai dance. Lastly, the team and the community performed a traditional dance as a tribute for welcoming the team with such generosity. After the ceremony, the team passed out toothbrushes and toothpaste to all the students. Finally, the team had lunch with the students followed by more play time. Then came the hardest part of the trip - saying goodbyes. Unfortunately, it was time for the team to depart the school. The team met the students and left for the church. At church, the team had to say more goodbyes. The team met Pastor Mike, Pastor Dar, Uncle Wit, Pastor Chalao and the rest of the local PUC Thailand team and then left for Mahidol. Once the team got to Mahidol, we gave a final presentation at the university. Then the ceremony ended with a video of our project and final remarks from the dean of ICT Mahidol. Overall, today was an emotional day for the team. We had to say goodbye to a lot of people, but we also were happy for the relationships the team cultivated throughout the trip. Lastly, the team was happy to deliver a project that would improve the quality of life of a community. Best,
Aleem
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Howdy friends and family! Wow!! Today has been a day! We started the morning at the school adding some finishing touches to our sinks. Yippeeee! After spending a few hours at the school, we all loaded into the van and headed to grab some lunch in the city. Since we are in Thailand we thought we would really branch out and get some pizza(: When we had stuffed as much as possible into our stomach’s, we went back to the church where things started to get exciting. Khem invited his friend over to teach us Tai Dam dance that we will be performing in front of the entire school tomorrow! We may not be the best dancers, but I think it is safe to say we will get a few laughs from the students!! After working up an appetite, we headed to the school where some of the administration and faculty members prepared dinner for us. We ended the night dancing and singing our hearts out with good old karaoke (shout out to Sai for knowing the words to Baby by jbiebs). Tonight is our last night at the church, and tomorrow morning we have an opening ceremony at the school before heading to Mahidol for our final closing presentation. It is crazy to think how fast time has flown! It seems like just yesterday the team was buying our plane tickets and planning for this trip. I remember feeling nervous to be so far from home in a new place experiencing a new culture. However, from the moment we arrived in Don Kang the team was welcomed by the community and we are extremely thankful for all they have done for us! We are thankful for the women that woke up early in the morning and stayed late to make sure that we had delicious food to eat every meal. We are thankful for Pastor Dar who acted as our second mom for the past few weeks, whether it was cutting our hair, teaching us how to make spring rolls, or listening to us complain about our day. We are thankful for Pastor Mike and Uncle Wit for coming in clutch with their help on the pipes and constantly being their when we needed them! We are thankful for Pastor Chalao and the entire Church of the New Covenant for sharing their home with us and making sure we were always comfortable. We are thankful for Parsit for being the best contractor ever and making sure our project ran smoothly. We are thankful for the students at Ban Thap Luang school for greeting us every morning with huge smiles and lots of hugs. Last, but certainly not least we are thankful for Khem for making this entire project possible. He constantly kept a smile on our faces with his stories and jokes! His generosity towards others is awe inspiring and we are all a little better for knowing him!!! When we all head our separate ways in a few days, we will definitely be leaving a little part of our heart in Don Kang. Thanks for reading!!
Signing Off, Julie Welcome back! Today was by far the most rewarding (and stressful) day of the project so far! We spent the day working on assembling and gluing our supply pipes. Sounds like a pretty easy task right? Wrong! We are talking about over 60 meters of pipes and close to 100 fittings! This took us the entire day to accomplish. Next came the water supply testing, which took the whole evening (shout out to Pastor Mike and Khem for delivering french fries to keep the morale up)! Initially we had a lot of trouble with our pump and pressure reducing valve. Our pipes kept popping off because the pressure was set too high. Here’s a video Dr. Ferron took of one of our mini explosions! youtu.be/EnN_Q5YL5AU After a little bit of trial and error the sinks finally worked, making a total of 25 faucets and 5 sink modules! After spending over 13 hours at the work site, seeing each and every faucet work was an incredible experience for all our team members. The project that we spent the last 10 months working was finally coming together! Julie, Pooja, and Khem headed out to a local gardening store to pick out trees for each team member to plant in the community. The plants ranged from coconut trees to mimosa tree, each mirroring a team member's personality! When we came back to the church, we were in for a delicious surprise! Pastor Dar taught us how to make spring rolls for dinner! Check out a picture of my beautiful creation! Tomorrow is our last work day! All that’s left to do is bracket our pipes to the back wall, double check our water supply, and fill in our water supply trench! The contractor will be spending the day helping us tile and paint our sinks before the opening ceremony on Friday!
That's all for now! Be sure to check back tomorrow for pictures of our finished sink structure! Hook em, Aleesha We're back! It's Pim and Rin again. We noticed the kids at Ban Thap Luang School practicing for Wai Kru ceremony on Thursday, so we thought we would give a little more insight on why Thai people perform this ceremony. Teachers' Day Observation, or Wai Kru, which literally means paying respect to your teachers (Wai as in clasping your hands together, and Kru as in teacher), usually on the first Thursday of the first semester of school, is a special day in which children gather to show their love and gratitude for all they have been given and to wish upon their teachers good health, wealth and other blessings. Traditionally, children form and decorate pedestal trays with different, common flora, each having a significant scholarly meaning. We've listed a few here: The usual product just looks like the cover photo or other shapes, like animals. But nowadays, new generations get creative and include other, education-related things to modern pedestal trays - or just going out of their way ENTIRELY (trust us, there are some wacky ones out there) - pictured below:
Then after recitals, class representatives line up to give each teacher's pedestal tray, each with its own bunch of candles and incense. As shown in the video, it's one of the most heartfelt school moments of the year. Last but not least, we'd like to take a moment to be grateful for all that teachers have done for us. Teachers are not limited to schools. They can be your parents, grandparents, friends, family, or the elderly. They pass on wisdom, morals, experience, and the strength and guidance we need to get through hard times. Teachers don't just provide educations, but they shape us to be better people. Wherever our teachers are now, we wish them all the best.
We hope you'd enjoyed reading our post of another look into the history of Thai culture and that you will take some time to reflect on the teachers in your lives and how others can learn from you - and maybe, in a way, you will become a good one too. Pim & Rin We’re baaaaaack! This is Dr. Ferron as your guest blogger. Wow, so seems like it’s been a while since we posted. Did you miss us? I know you did. But don't worry, we are ok. We have just been super busy doing the work of PUC. Okay, I’ll give a brief overview of what we did these past 3 days, starting from Sunday and ending on today, June 12. Sunday, June 10, 2018 Sunday was our day of rest. Remember in the June 3rd post I stated that some of us may participate in the church service. Guess what?? I actually did it! Yep, I am now a bonafide member of the New Life Donklang Church Choir. I even practiced with them on Saturday. We sang 3 songs in Thai and English (okay, I just sang the English version of the songs) and it was a great experience. It’s always been a lifelong goal of mine to sing in a choir as an adult. Who would have thought that my first time doing that would be in Thailand. It was a beautiful service and since that will be our last Sunday there (we will depart on the 15th to go to Salaya for the Mahidol closing ceremony) the church had a small recognition ceremony for us. Each member of the PUC team said some remarks about their experience and gave thanks to the church members for all of their help. The photo below shows us at the ceremony. Do you notice anything different about one of our PUC students? Hint, hint… look very closely at the girls. Answer will be given at the end of the entire blog post. HAHAHAHAHA, now you need to actually read the entire post or scroll through it to see the answer. After service we had lunch with the church community and then relaxed. The students played various card games, basketball, etc. I worked on a presentation that I was going to give the next day at Mahidol University. We finished the evening off with dinner at Khem’s palace…oops I mean house. The students have been craving for pizza so being the considerate person that he is, Khem arranged for us to have pizza for dinner and some yummy desserts. My favorite part of the evening was looking through Khem’s wedding album and when Khem’s 82 years old father-in-law sang some traditional Thai songs for us...in Thai of course. Even so, somehow we understood what he conveying without understanding what he was saying. My take away from this day is that our similarities bonds us more than our differences separates us; even though we do not speak the same language as our hosts we were still able to communicate since we are united in a spirit of love, giving and compassion. Monday June 11, 2018 Remember when I said I had a presentation at Mahidol University? Well the day has arrived. Khem and I departed the church at 7:30am to travel by van to Mahidol. We arrived around 10:30 am. By the time we finished checking in with the appropriate people it was 11:20. Khem and I decided that we will grab lunch since the seminar was not until 1pm. However as we were walking down the street we passed a massage parlor. Khem looked at me and asked me if I wanted to get a massage or do a long lunch. Now anyone that knows me, knows what I said. MASSAGE PLEASE!!! So I got an hour massage. We finished around 12:40pm. After the massage, we grabbed some street food (chicken on a stick and sticky rice) and quickly walked back to the University. We made it back at 12:50. #winning The seminar went really well. It was a great mixture of students and faculty. Thank you to Dr. Wudhichart Sawangphol from Mahidol Faculty of Information and Communications Technology for organizing the seminar. After the seminar, we traveled back to Suphan Buri and reached there at 6:00pm, right in time for dinner. Oh, about that massage…..it was the best one I’ve had thus far in Thailand (that was my 3rd one by the way). It was more expensive than the massages I’ve had in Suphan Buri, but boy was it worth it. I had a hot oil massage and my only complaint was that it was only an hour. I wish I had time for the 2 hour massage. Anyways, if you are ever around the Salaya area of Thailand, I highly recommend the Talanda Spa. https://talanda-spa-salaya.business.site/ While I was engaging in community involvement by giving the seminar, the students were at the site working. It was going to be a light day of work since some critical path items that needed to be done could not be done until the next day. So what did they do? They started working on assembling the water pipes, filled in some trenches, made care packages to distribute to students at the school, and played with the students. The care package consists of a toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste, this fits in well with the mission of the project. One of the reasons we are building this hygiene station is so that the students can brush their teeth after meals. Inside the care package was a special note from the team. Wanna know what the note said? We will reveal the contents of the note if we get at least 5 comments in the comment section of the blogpost that says “Go PUC Team!” Photos: Top Row, Left Image: Aleesha and Pooja assembling pipes. Top Row, Right Image: Aleesha playing jump rope with students at the school. Bottom Row, Left Image: Assembling the faucets. There's 25 of them. That's alot of sinks! Bottom Row, Right Image: Putting together the care package for the school. Tuesday June 12, 2018 Today we split into two groups. Trey, Pooja, Aleem, Sofia and Rin were members of the “Project Group”. The project group did just what its name suggests. They continued to work on the project. They worked on drainage piping, specifically assembling them and checking for leaks. Great news, module 1 does not have any leaks!! Myself, Aleesha, Julie, Sai and Pim were the “Scoping Group”. The Scoping Group accompanied Khem on two site visits to scope out potential projects for next year’s PUC Thailand’s team. Yes, we want to keep this going! We are even talking about doing a 5 year reunion in 2021 with everyone involved in a PUC Thailand team from 2017 - 2021. Last week Aleesha and Aleem scoped two schools that were located about an hour away from our current site. Today, the Scoping Group went to two schools located about 10 minutes away from our current site (Ban Thap Luang School). At each site, the principal came out to great us and gave us a tour of the school (see photo of the Scoping Group checking out a site) and told us their priority list for potential projects. Each of these schools are doing the best they can with the resources they have. From cafeteria kitchens to student bathrooms to playgrounds, we listened (through our translators) as the principal shared with us their deepest desires for improving their schools. It was bittersweet because we could see the hope in the principal’s eyes and their passion to improve their school, however we also know that next year’s team will probably only help one of the schools. An important issue I should note is access to clean, drinking water is a major issue at each of the schools that we toured. A couple of days ago, Sai mentioned that perhaps one project would be to help the city improve their water treatment process. I do think it’s something that is worth considering since that will be addressing the source of the problem. This is also a great time to mention that access to clean water is a problem in many parts of the US too (https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/wj4qvx/these-us-cities-are-dealing-with-the-worst-drinking-water-problems-nationwide). So to all those reading this and to the author herself, if you have potable water when open the faucet valve in your home, work or school, give thanks and take a second to reflect on the fact that even though access to safe drinking water is a fundamental human right so many communities around the world do not have it. Be vigilant in conserving water in your communities and feel free to hug your favorite civil or environmental engineer for being part of a profession that aims to bring access to safe drinking water people across the world. Can you tell that I’m a civil engineer ;-). After the site visits, the Scoping Group met up with the Project Group and we all had lunch at the church. After lunch, we all went back to the site and became one “Project Group” again. The contractor plastered the sink modules and the students continued working on piping. Khem told us that if we finish by Wednesday (umm, that’s tomorrow) then he will take us to someplace called the Monkey City. To be honest, I'm not sure what the official name of the place is, but that is what Khem called it, so hence that is what I will call it. To my understanding, Monkey City is a park where lots of monkeys roam around in nature and they come up close to people. Ummn, yeah....I’m not too excited about this (I’m a scaredy cat!). I'm not sure if I will go...maybe I'll hit the spa again.but the students are really really excited about Monkey City. Will we finish in time for them to go? Check in tomorrow to find out! See here for the answer to the hint!
Did you figure it out? The answer is that Pooja cut her hair!! Well, actually Pastor Dar cut Pooja's hair. Her hair is now shoulder length. This is the first time her hair has been this short! Another first for a PUC team member! Kudos to Pooja for her bravery. Her new hairstyle looks great and she fully embraced and loved it from day 1. See below for the before and after photos. The concrete pours for modules four and five were completed today. While that might seem a little underwhelming compared to what we've accomplished at other points during this trip, creating two full sinks is actually an all hands on deck task that requires at least seven hours of dedicated labor. Today, I'm going to break down each component of a sink pour to help give you a better idea of the preparation and effort that is going into this project. Batching: The type of concrete that we have been creating requires four materials - cement, course aggregates (gravel), fine aggregates (sand), and water. When these four are combined, a chemical reaction occurs that binds them together in a stone like molecular structure. Because of the specific nature of our environment and sink design, we add a high range water reducer, a retarder, and fibers to our mix, which makes the concrete act more like a liquid and retain that workable state longer. The exact proportions of each material were carefully calculated by Dr. Ferron and Aleesha over the course of approximately 15 trial batches last week. Before each pour, the materials are gathered and carefully weighed out according to the mix design. Formwork: To ensure that the concrete acquires the correct shape, the local contractor, Prasit, helped the team create a set of wooden forms that rest on top of and around our foundation to provide that structure. While running trial batches in Austin, we learned that the wood has a tendency to stick to the concrete, so Julie and Pooja coated the entire form with motor oil to assist with removal. Additionally, we had to cut, install, and seal the drainage holes, seal the edges of the formwork to prevent leakage, and brace weak joints. Only after all of that has been done can the actual mixing begin. Mixing & Pouring: Creating the concrete requires combining all of the ingredients in a specific order in the mixer. Since concrete is a very volatile mixture, each batch has to be customized based on the specific characteristics that appear. Trey and Dr. Ferron were on mixing duty all day and cranked out nine full batches over the course of four hours. Once mixed, the concrete passes to the rest of the team, who pours it into the forms. To insure that no air bubbles form, marring the final surface, we used pieces of rebar to 'rod' the mix before using trowels to smooth out the final surface. This is the busiest part of the entire process and we all had to maintain constant communication to keep everything running smoothly. Finishing: After the pour, the concrete has to set for six to eight hours to achieve its initial hardness. Most people napped or watched Netflix in the intervening time (or studied for the LSAT - go Julie). Once it sets, the formwork has to be unscrewed and pried off of the surface as gently as possible to avoid marring the surface. At this point, the concrete still hasn't achieved its full strength however, so to support the ongoing chemical reactions, we have to cover the surface a layer of wet burlap sacks to retain moisture. If all of the preceding steps are executed our final product comes out looking like the sink below. So that's the art of the concrete pour. It's grueling and grimy, but also incredibly rewarding. Today was especially satisfying because we've completed all of our structural work, leaving only pipe work and drainage trenching for the next three days. Throughout the year, the advisory board that supervised our work expressed concern with the size of our scope so with the end in sight, we're proud of what we've been able to deliver to the community. As always, none of this would be possible without Khem's constant support. He's pictured below on his Harley racing back from the pipe store with some emergency fittings.
-Trey Aleesha and Aleem were up bright and early this morning to scope out potential projects for next years PUC Thailand team. By the sounds of it it’s going to be a drinking water distribution station at a school about an hour away from our location! The rest of the team met with SCG at the project site and got to meet their team that is installing sinks at the schools kitchen. After, we set off to pickup Aleesha and Aleem and see another beautiful church that Khem and Pastor Mike built. With the whole team together we were finally en route to the waterfall Khem had been talking about since we arrived in Thailand. During the car ride Julie was working on her LSAT prep by doing logic puzzles, little did she know that the nerdy engineers surrounding her all wanted a part in these logic games, they are our version of “fun.” So Julie handed us each a different page with a logic puzzle to keep us quite and pass the time. Once we reached, the Team eagerly hiked up to the fifth waterfall in the series and made stops at the second and third ones on the way up. We quickly learned that there were a lot of fish in the water and as soon as you put your feet in they bite!! We spent a lot of time dancing our feet in the water trying to keep the fish off, it didn’t stop us though. We continued onto the fifth water fall where we jumped in and climbed up the slippery rocks to the top of one giant rock that was somewhat of a slide. All of us enjoyed sliding down that rock even Dr.Ferron! After the water fall we visited the Thailand–Burma Railway and the accompanying cemetery where about 180,000 POW’s and laborers died during its construction. The team really worked up an appetite after this eventful day and had to stop at McDonalds for a little slice of home before heading back to the church to retire for the night. We have our final two sink pours tomorrow so it’s going to be another long sweaty and exciting day. This trip so far has been a great reminder to always apply your skills in a way that helps out others, appreciate the people you’re with, and to always, always jump in the water even if there are fish that bite ;)
Although I have learned a lot about culture, engineering, social work, and service through PUC. I am going to leave you with what I’ve learned from the people involved in this project. •Create opportunities for others to grow like Khem does •Serve your community like the pastor Chalao, uncle Wit and the other core members of the church •Treat everyone like family the way pastor Mike and pastor Dar do •Be enthusiastic and excited about each day like Pim •Try to make situations more humorous and light hearted like Sai •Be thorough yet open minded like Dr.Ferron •Don’t compromise on quality, even under pressure like Aleem •Belt your heart out to your favorite songs like Aleesha •Aim to be inquisitive and energetic the way Trey is •Smile and be kind to everyone like Rin •Take Julie’s sincere attitude wherever you go •Remain level headed and humble like Sofia •Finally, wave eagerly, laugh, smile and say “hello” like the adorable kids of Don Klang because they have made my day everyday simply by doing just that. Thanks for reading! Love, Pooja Hello everyone! This is Aleem writing to you from Don Klang. Today's day started out a little bit differently than normal as Trey, Sai, Pastor Mike and me went to the school at midnight to remove the forms from modules 2 and 3. With a little bit of effort, the forms came lose relatively easily and the team has now officially completely cast 3 out of the 5 sink modules.
After returning and sleeping for a couple of hours, the team woke up a little early today and was on the road by 6:15 AM. Our destination was a SCG cement plant. Through our technical adviser Dr. Ferron, we were put in contact with Dr. Wilasa, who worked at SCG and helped us secure a cement donation from the company for our project. Furthermore, they invited the team to visit one of their cement plants! When the team arrived, we were greeted with one of the teams favorite Thai things to eat - mango and sticky rice! After a brief introduction, various engineers from SCG took their time to explain us the process of cement making. Next, the team visited the limestone quarry on site and the control rooms of the whole operation. It was amazing to see all the equipment used in the manufacturing of cement. Following lunch, the team toured the rest of the SCG site. We visited a learning center and got a quick lesson on plastering and even saw 3D printed concrete structures. Lastly, we ended the tour by visiting the shale quarry and reservoir. Finally, following dinner, the team arrived back in Don Klang ready for the next day. The whole team would like to specially thank SCG and Dr. Wilasa for hosting us so graciously and for their generous donation. Best, Aleem Greetings from Thailand! Today has been a crazy day to say the least. The day began earliest for Sofia and Pim who left around 6:30 to work on our concrete mix with Dr. Ferron. The rest of the team joined them at the school at 8:30 to finish up the form work for the second and third sink modules. After sweating up a storm for an hour or so we took a break to hang out with some of the students. The jump rope and chalk were a raging success and left the team feeling rejuvenated and motivated to continue working until lunch. When we returned from lunch, the real work began. The formwork for the second and third modules was done and after countless trial batches we finally figured out a mix that would work!! Next the team batched out the sand, cement, water, and aggregates for the concrete. The last few hours of the day all hands were on deck to mix and pour the cement (shoutout to taylor swift, the jonas brothers, and avril lavigne for keeping our spirits up). Although today has been an exhausting day, I am ecstatic to say that we have poured 3/5 modules of sinks!!!! We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, so I tried to keep it short!!
Sending lots of love from Thailand and more importantly, go Cavs! xoxo, Julie Sawasdee Ka! It’s Aleesha coming to you once again from Don Klang! The past few days have been filled with delicious food, interesting fruits (trying durian was an experience for everyone), and lots of hard work. Despite my fear of bugs, I’ve fallen in love with Thailand and the people in the Don Klang community. The generosity and support that we’ve received from everyone at the church and school is incredible. Today I spent the day testing trial concrete mixtures with Dr. Ferron, Trey, andJulie. We created about 15 different test batches in order to see how much admixture we need to add to our concrete when we do a full module. After our first module, we realized that some of the coarse aggregates that we were using are too big for our design. Because of this, we had to spend the whole day ordering new aggregates and redesigning our concrete mixture. The rest of the team worked on assembling the water supply and drainage pipes. We made a lot of progress trenching! (Mainly because we rented out a backhoe, but we’re still really excited about not having to dig in the afternoon heat!) We are planning on finalizing the concrete design, finishing the form work, and pouring modules two and three tomorrow; so tomorrow is going to be an extremely long day! That being said, I should probably get to bed! Good night!!!
Lots of love, Aleesha |
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