Once again, people kept snoring, meaning that I was on my third day without a good night's sleep. I was feeling really worn out, but I knew that I would be getting a break soon, so I tried to work as hard as I could.
That was my first day "mudding out" a house. When the tsunami flooded houses, it brought lots and lots of mud with it. This mud was mixed with lots of oil and probably lots of bacteria, too. This concoction would go under the floorboards of houses and settle down, forming a layer of mud and compacted oil. It stank and gave off a general feeling of "this stuff is bad." Our job was to rip up the floorboards of a room and scoop all that junk out. And the support beams underneath the floor made moving around really tedious.
I helped mud out two rooms from a woman's house. She had called the city for help in cleaning, but hadn't heard back for months. Luckily, she knew Mr. Abe, who was working with us. To be honest, I don't remember much from that day other than it was hot, uncomfortable, hard, yet boring work and by the time I was done, I was really discouraged about just how far away people still are from recovering. I was really relieved when my team came by early.
You see, Dr. Mehn knew that this kind of work would tire us out and that going for a week with no break wasn't feasible. So he planned for us to have a bit of a break in the middle with some sightseeing. We returned to the base early, cleaned ourselves up, and headed to a hotel. Finally, I was able to get a good night's rest.
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