{"id":54,"date":"2011-01-30T01:34:59","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T08:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2011-03-01T11:58:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T18:58:29","slug":"osha-can-you-hear-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"OSHA, Can You Hear Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Greetings again from Lovely Laos.\u00a0 This country has been wonderful.\u00a0\u00a0Everything from the people, culture and weather, which I am loving right now, have been perfect.\u00a0 One thing that I notice when I travel in different parts of the world is safety or lack of it.\u00a0 It is definitely not up to par with the United States.\u00a0 For my day job I had to take a safety class\u00a0from OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration).\u00a0 Taking a class\u00a0with OSHA makes you so aware of safety or the lack of it.\u00a0 My mom has had the training, so, we have been discussing all of the\u00a0things that are done\u00a0here without\u00a0any thought given to safety.\u00a0 If OHSA showed up, this country could be shut down.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with our build site.\u00a0 We have been working hard on the school, and I have had the opportunity to lay some brick at the lower level.\u00a0 Now that\u00a0 the lower bricks have been laid, the locals have started to build their own scaffolding to reach the higher levels on the school.\u00a0 Here in Asia, the typical scaffolding is made of bamboo.\u00a0 But our worksite does not even use that.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, they use the\u00a0old and unsturdy desks from the classrooms and stack them on top of each other.\u00a0 Then they throw a board on\u00a0 top, and volia!\u00a0 They\u00a0have scaffolding.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThese are the classroom tables and desks stacked in a room waiting for paint.\u00a0 They\u00a0are being used \u00a0by both the children and the workers as scaffolding.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>\"\"
\nThe supports for this scaffolding are the classroom tables stacked on their sides.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nNow the bricklayer has another classroom table stacked on top of the first level.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis gives you another view of the tables on their sides.
\n<\/em>
\nThe children are very eager to help anyway they can.\u00a0 At the moment school is out of session, but there are children at the site everyday because their parents are there helping us.\u00a0 The\u00a0children want to help, and since we are painting all of the existing classrooms, we have to scrape off\u00a0old glue that was\u00a0used\u00a0to hang artwork on the walls.\u00a0\u00a0Children are climbing all over to get to the higher- up areas of the wall so they can reach the glue.\u00a0 It almost looks like a child labor camp, but the kids are having a great time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHere the children are on the tables while they scrape paper and glue off of the walls to prepare them for paint.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis little\u00a0girl is hanging on to the window frame.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Coconuts are something the locals have been giving us everyday for lunch.\u00a0 I guess they were running short, so, \u00a0one day\u00a0 the teacher\u00a0encouraged a student to climb the tree in the schoolyard to get some coconuts, and they had no problem letting him use the machete.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis young man is climbing a tree in front of the school to retrieve some coconuts.\u00a0 The bus we use for our transportation to the worksite is in the background.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHe is using a machete\u00a0 to cut off the coconuts.\u00a0 Then he lowers them by rope to his buddy waiting below.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nNow he is once again using the machete to trim the\u00a0 coconuts and to put a hole in the top for straws.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday\u00a0after a long week of working, we took time\u00a0off for some rest and relaxation.\u00a0\u00a0Our group decided to do a zipline and rope bridge adventure course.\u00a0 The adventure started with a\u00a0two- hour van ride\u00a0 to the forest.\u00a0 The\u00a0ride was just as dangerous as anything else this week because they really don’t follow any\u00a0traffic rules. \u00a0Once we got to a certain village, we had a 20-minute boat ride\u00a0on the river.\u00a0 When we stopped, we were\u00a0where our trek to the mountain top would begin. \u00a0The boats were quite small, but they managed to get a lot of people in them.\u00a0 There were no life jackets, and the only safety that was followed\u00a0was when the guide asked if we could all swim.<\/p>\n

There were two boats that we used.\u00a0\u00a0One had a leak and one didn’t.\u00a0 I was lucky enough to get the boat with the leak, which we were warned about\u00a0before getting in.\u00a0 While traveling on the river, our boat\u00a0filled with water fast, and so, we had to use\u00a0 two small pails that were available to constantly get the water out of the boat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My feet were completely soaked within\u00a0three minutes\u00a0of the start.\u00a0 It was an exciting way to get to our ziplines which were supposed to be the challenging part of the day’s tour.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis is one of the two boats available for our 20-minute commute to the beginning of the zipline course.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe arrive safely despite using two pails to remove water from the boat’s floor.
\n<\/em>
\nFinally, we made it to our destination which was also our lunch spot.\u00a0 The local guides\u00a0 made a wonderful lunch.\u00a0\u00a0However,\u00a0 we\u00a0noticed that when they were cooking, they\u00a0passed around a bottle of Johhny Walker alcohol to each other.\u00a0 I guess that is how they get ready to take the tourist up to the ziplines.<\/p>\n

The zipline course had\u00a0six \u00a0maneuvers and\u00a0nine ziplines.\u00a0 Mutlitple platforms were constructed to hold us while we progressed\u00a0 from activity to activity.\u00a0 In the beginning they said no more than\u00a0four people on a platform at one time.\u00a0 After a while, that rule no longer applied as we had double the amount of people on a platform at any time.\u00a0 There was definitely a language barrier because we can’t speak Lao.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis view shows one of the platforms we used for the ziplining.\u00a0 Only four people were to be on a platform at one time.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>We all agreed that it was an eventful and fun day, but we were also all relieved when we arrived safely at our hotel last night.<\/p>\n

Have you traveled and had any safety hazards that made you a little nervous?<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings again from Lovely Laos.\u00a0 This country has been wonderful.\u00a0\u00a0Everything from the people, culture and weather, which I am loving right now, have been perfect.\u00a0 One thing that I notice when I travel in different parts of the world is safety or lack of it.\u00a0 It is definitely not up to par with the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}