Moonlit Manual Labor

Over the next few months I will be responsible for the construction of a large water catchment system that is going to be built in our community. My predecessor Ben fundraised thousands of dollars and planned the construction of this water tank. It took longer than expected to organize the project and it is still in its nascent stages. Ben is also leaving in 2 weeks. So I am taking over the project and supervising its construction while handling the money.

After a confusing purchasing process that included multiple trips to multiple stores, the supplies were finally loaded onto a ship and brought to Fefan. They arrived at sunset last night. The ship needed to depart early the next morning, so it was our task to unload the supplies that night. We had a team of about a dozen community workers to help with the undertaking. These unemployed locals are going to be the primary laborers on the project over the next couple months.

Luckily, it was a full moon. Although it was nighttime, we didn’t even need to use flashlights in the unloading process. Instead we worked under the light of the bright moon. However, unloading the materials was no simple matter. There were a lot of materials.

The tank is going to be 14 ft in diameter and 8 feet tall, including a 16 foot square foundation. To build this huge water tank we needed: 72 bags of cement, 280 heavy concrete blocks, 150 twenty foot pcv pipes, 90 twenty foot rods of metal rebar, over 60 twenty foot 2 x 4’s, and loads of wire and other small accessories. Taking all of this off the ship by hand took hours of hard work. We formed a line and passed the materials in an efficient manner from hand to hand. Following Chuukese custom and the custom of construction workers around the world, we took plenty of breaks to lounge around and shoot the shit. A drunkard also wandered up and got in a fistfight with one of the workers. It was an unpredictably intense intermission for our work, but apparently its something that I will have to get used to in Chuuk.

Although it was hard work to unload all these materials, it was done in such a majestic setting that it didn’t perturb me at all. I took my time to admire the moonlight rippling on the calm waters of the lagoon and the thin clouds whisping overhead. It was one of those moments where I realized how lucky I am to be in such an amazing place surrounded by boundless natural beauty.