“Laying Bricks to Attract Jade”

Brick by Brick - "Laying Bricks to Attract Jade"

Sally Werner and CG Goldberg

When you think of a Habitat Build, you probably think of smiling craftsman and artisans, checking to make sure plum-lines are straight, that the ratios of brick to mortar have been scientifically determined, and that bits and pieces of construction have been serendipitously joined together.  Ours was a bit different – centering solely on moving bricks, but it was just as satisfying as any picture book of a Habitat Build.  On two separate weekends in October and November, volunteers from U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou, in partnership with the J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust and Habitat for Humanity, assisted in the construction of a new, six-family home in flood-ravaged Wenwu Village in northern Guangdong Province.  Torrential rains this past spring had destroyed much of the village, and its inhabitants, mostly rice and bamboo farmers, lacked the resources to rebuild.   

The grant from the J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust amounted to about 60 percent of the cost of building materials and construction.  Consulate officers raised the remainder of the funds through personal donations and a charity auction for the American Consulate community, with donated items ranging from the commonplace —Chinese paintings, embroideries, and pottery—to the outlandish, such as the opportunity to pie fellow officers in the face (top bid $24)!   

The build itself was not without its difficulties, humorous interludes, and lessons for all involved.  Our job was to hand-carry bricks up two floors in assembly line fashion to supply skilled bricklayers as they constructed the interior walls of the new home.  Each of the 39 volunteers from the Consulate personally transported an estimated 7.5 tons of bricks per day, for a group total of almost 300 tons, or ten thousand bricks!  We returned home sore and road weary.  On one occasion, it looked as if Heaven mandated we remain in Wenwu Village longer than our task required, when our minibus broke down on a section of mountain road just above the village.  The would-be motor heads among us pinpointed the problem in the electrical system and attempted to jump start the bus by rolling it down a hill, where it remained, engine flooded and immovable, until local mechanics arrived on the scene. 

But that was just the beginning of our adventure.  Next came a lesson in diesel oil shortages in China as gas station after gas station, unwilling to absorb the losses incurred by the gap between government mandated price caps and international prices, refused to sell us the fuel we needed to make the four-hour (soon to be six-plus-hour) drive back to Guangzhou!  Fortunately, a little name-dropping (the Consul General was on board and needed to get back to Guangzhou for a “high level” meeting) finally convinced the gas station attendants to fill our tank, and we were soon on our way home.
      
In the end, this exercise—somewhat more arduous than many had thought at first—brought us together as a community, challenging us to come up with ways to raise the money we needed to complete the project (even with the Trust’s support, we were still $1,500 short), introducing many of us to conditions in the rural areas of our consular district, and giving us a better understanding of how villagers cope with natural disasters.  There were also moments of high drama and low humor, which years from now we will still be laughing and reminiscing about.  But most importantly, we accomplished our mission of helping six-families in flood-ravaged Wenwu Village rebuild their homes.   As the old Chinese proverb goes, albeit in a context far removed from its original meaning, we helped “lay bricks to attract jade,” the jade in this instance being a new start for the people of Wenwu Village.

 

Build Team I Group Shot