Made it to Chiang Mai !!

Hi again,

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but the Internet connection is a bit hit and miss ! We finally arrived in Chiang Mai on Saturday afternoon. It's a LONG way from Belfast. Here's me and Carolann, one of our teamleaders in Dublin, on our way. 2 long flights and one short one later we finally got to Chang Mai. Here's some of the scenes along the way. That's Jim, out other teamleader along with Carolann in Bangkok.

When we got to Chiang Mai, we had a wonderful welcome from the local Habitat organisation. Almost all of our flight were coming to the Habitat Carter build. We were serenaded by a traditional band, garlanded with flowers and driven to our hotel.

The Habitat Jimmy Carter Work Project is a very big event in Chiang Mai and was signposted and advertised at the airport and all the way into the city.There are 2000 volunteers from 30 countries in ChiangMai for the build.

When we got to our hotel, we were a wee bit tired, so dinner on Satrday night was a quite affair in a local restaurant, where we dined on wonderful Thai food, for about a dollar a head ! and an early night.

On Sunday, we spent the morning walking around the old city, visiting temples and ancient monuments and were taken to the Opening Ceremony for the build in the afternoon. It was a magnificent affair, held at the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, which is a huge centre, like a massive botanical gardens with a temple. All 2000 volunteers, along with the various dignatories from Thailand, from Habitat Internationally and of course Former President Jimmy ad Rosyln Carter. The event started with wondrful fireworks. Then we had an address from President Carter and some of the other VIPS, followed by a lovely traditional Thai meal, a amazing feat to feed 200 in such style.


Here's H4H Team Belfast at the Open Ceremony. And here we are again at dinner with a new friend, Adrian from Habitat Romania, who enjoyed working with the huge Belfast team on the recent Big Build.

We made our way home at about 9.30 pm ready to start on the main event next morning .....

Starting out for Chiang Mai

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Well it's almost time to head off on my Habitat for Humanity build week. This year I'm going on the Jimmy Carter Work Project to the Mekong Delta, to Chiang Mai in Thailand. There's a lot of news of the build on the US Habitat website at : http://www.habitat.org/eca/

We're starting off from Belfast tomorrow night - well at 2.30 am on Friday 13th (great Day to travel !). We meet up at the Europa Bus Station in Belfast to get a bus to Dublin. Then it's Dublin to Abu Dhabi ; Abu Dhabi to Bangkok and then Bangkok to Chiang Mai .. so I reckon we'll be a wee bit shattered when we get there. But never mind, we have a day or so to recover before we start to build on Monday 16th November.

We Habitat builders are in good company. As well as former US President Jimmy Carter, our patron (pictured), who will lead our build in the Mekong Delta, President and Mrs. Obama have built with Habitat on September 11, 2009 as part of the US National Day of Service and Rememberance. Here they are with their build group.

There's been a test build on the site in Chiang Mai earlier in the year, to help prepare for the 82 houses that are planned to be built next week. Here's some activity from the test build and some info from the test builders :




Habitat construction manager Fernando Morales said the test build allowed them to assess the challenges that may occur during the actual build in November, when up to 82 houses will be built in one week in the village of Nong Gon Kru, some 20 kilometers north of Chiang Mai city.

Morales explained how the project will unfold for the 2,000 or so volunteers: “The first two days will be building walls. The second and third days will involve installing the roof trusses and half of the roof tiles. The fourth day is completing the roof, toilet and counter top for the kitchen, while the fifth day is for installing windows, doors and partition walls inside the house.”

So that's the plan, for our 82 houses in a week ! I'm really looking forward to the trip and will try to update the blog daily, (depending on Internet connections), to keep you up to date on the build activity,

Thanks again for your support,

Kate