Sand was the theme of the third day of the build. Not enough of it, injuries in it, and bullets found buried.
Waiting: The group was poised to finish in three days. All they needed was truckloads of sand, about 35 of them. It is arduous work shoveling and hauling sand in wheelbarrows to different parts of the playground, and then raking it. We didn't have enough of it either. Trucks were trickling in - volunteers sitting around waiting.
Bleeding: One volunteer named Mel was in charge of a wheelbarrow after one of the few loads of sand was dumped. She stepped where she shouldn’t and cut her foot to the bone on the sharp edge of the wheelbarrow. There was no denying after seeing the amount of blood, and well, bone that she needed medical attention. Volunteers loaded her up on the back of a motorbike and took her to hospital. Six stitches later and she was back. Thirty bucks for the hospital visit. Thirty five for the medication she needed. As a photo journalist, she took her camera and documented the whole thing.
Shocking: Apocalypse now and Platoon are probably two of the best Vietnam War movies out there. Just about everyone saw at least one of those movies set during the brutal and bloody 16 years of conflict. The volunteers all had that in the back of their minds when they arrived on the build site. In fact, the project manager asked that the area be cleared before we came in case there were left over land mines. According to different websites, about 14 million tonnes of bombs were dropped. Thirty percent of the explosives did not detonate. So maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when we found 4 bullets in the sand set down for kids to play in. But we were. There was no date on them. But they looked old and rusty. People, who admittedly have little experience with guns, but watch a lot of TV, mused that they were part of an American machine gun magazine. Everyone in the group scrambled to take pictures of these rundown, unused canisters made to kill. The outcome: pictures of an ugly but fascinating part of world history, buried in our sand.
