A Wonderful Day to finish

Hi again,

Today was a wonderful day. It was the last day of our build and we completed Sarika's house.

Here's President and Mrs. Carter doing the rounds of each of the 82 homes on site and greeting Sarika and the other home owners.

Today started early as normal, and we arrived on site at about 7am, to see that the elves had been in overnight and cleaned up the roads around the development, and everything looked clean and neat. We still had some tasks to do on the house - like finishing off the roof tiles and adding the facia board. We also hung the doors and installed the windows this morning.

At mid morning, President and Mrs. Carter did a tour of the site. They visited every house, had pictures taken with the team and greeted the new home owners. We were delighted to see Sarika shake hands with President Carter and officially receive title to her new home. It was very much a celebratory day. Here's our team as we waited for the official photo with President and Mrs. Carter. The tour of the site was, as always, meticulously planned and we could not move from our posts until the President's party had left our block.

And here's Sarika and her daughter outside her new home.

We continued to work on the outstanding tasks on the house throughout the morning and after lunch, finished off the clean up before we had a lovely intimate dedication ceremony at the house with Sarika and her family.

We joined with our neighbours at Number 17, as the House Leader, Linda, was supervising the build of both houses, and the dedication was a joint session for both teams and sets of home owners.

It was impossible not to feel the huge emotion and sense of overwhelming significance of the day. Everyone who spoke was in tears or close to it, and this afternoon's session really brought home to us all, what this week is all about. For me it was the focal point of the week.

We've come as teams from the 4 corners of the world and worked together with old friends and new and with the family who will live in Number 18. None of us are skilled builders, but under the expert direction of Jim, Spencer and Linda, between us, we've provided a new home for Sarika and her family to live in. It's a fantastic feeling of collective achievement and it was indeed a Wonderful Day.

In the afternon before the dedcation, we helped Sarika to decorate her home with flowers and balloons, and there were more cameras and photos than you've ever seen. Everyone wanted to take home some images of the day. Here's Sarika at the door of her new house, and our Team Leaders, Carolann and Jim pausing to reflect on the moment after the dedication ceremony.

Before leaving today, we went to visit Gina at Number 25, where a few of us had dome some work. It was great to see our new friend before we went - here she is (second right) with Eileen, Caitriona and me.


After the dedication, we had the closing ceremony for the whole development. President Carter address all of the home owners and volunteers and thanked everyone for their efforts. He was then off to Cambodia to address the volunteers who had worked there during the week. We were then treated to some spectacular Thai music and dancing and another lovely meal.

A very significant day and one that those of us privileged enough to attend will never forget.

A fitting end to a magnficent week.

Tomorrow, we have a lie in .. till about 6m. Then we go off on our 2 days Rest and Relaxation. We're going on a trek which includes an Elephant ride, some (gentle) water rafting and trekking through the mountains to the North of Chiang Mai. We will stay over night tomorrow with one of the tribes in the hills and come back to Chiang Mai on Sunday. I'm not sure what sort of facilities we'll have but I wouldn't bet on there being an internet connection ! So I probably won't be able to report on the trek until I get home to Belfast.

Thanks for reading !

Kate

(catherine.docherty@tinyworld.co.uk)