Embassy Activities (2009)
U.S. Embassy Volunteers Travel to Chonburi To Build Homes for Habitat for Humanity
They came, they built, they vowed to return. Twenty-five U.S. Embassy employees and family members traveled to Chonburi last weekend to build homes for Habitat for Humanity Thailand.
The primary focus was the residence of Tipawan Posaraj, a 41-year-old Chonburi resident, whose home was funded with U.S. Embassy employee donations. The group of U.S. Embassy volunteers also worked on two other houses at the site.
“I’m so grateful to the staff of the U.S. Embassy and to Habitat for making my dreams come true,” said Tipawan, who shoveled sand and mixed cement alongside her American friends to build her home.
Tipawan bought the parcel of land where the completed shell of her house now stands in Banglamoong District, Chonburi. U.S. Embassy employee donations of Bt140,000 provided the materials for its construction.
“Whoever thought that mixing cement could be so much fun?” said Corina Warfield, a volunteer who works at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Warfield had previously worked on a Habitat project in Oakland, California.
She and other U.S. Embassy employees toiled in 34-degree Centigrade heat on Saturday and Sunday to fill the foundation of Tipawan’s house with sand, mix and pour the cement for her floor, and build the exterior walls surrounding her 36-square-meter home.
Tipawan, who works at Big C in Pattaya, will live there with her 23-year-old daughter, Suralak, and a niece, Tani, 30. The women currently live in a rented room that measures 16 square meters.
Several Embassy staff expressed interest in returning to help build another home that was partly funded by U.S. government donations. Warfield said she’d certainly consider returning once her muscles stopped aching. “I’m hurting in places that I didn’t know existed,” she said with a smile.