A Shack for a Shack

My host sister and her husband recently decided that they were going to move out of our house. We currently have 14 people living in our tiny abode and it is rather cramped. When space inside a household is overloaded, people usually don’t move too far. It would be unheard of for someone to move to another village or island. Land doesn’t work like that. Instead, they decided to renovate the ramshackled chicken coop that sits on the edge of our property. It is a partly concrete, partly corrugated tin house with metal screens and wooden doors. This is the standard type of house in Chuuk. However, this one was particularly shitty because nobody except chickens had ever called it home sweet home.

The first stage of renovation was demolition. This is by far the most fun part. I have always fantasized about going on a wrecking frenzy with a giant hammer on a car or old house. Well my dream finally came true. We tore the roofing off with crowbars and smashed the wooden framing to pieces. Most of the structure was already decomposing, so it crumbled into shards with a single strike of a hammer. I crushed pillars, pounded wooden beams and kicked down walls for an entire afternoon. It was glorious!