I'm at the hotel already. I get kind of anxious when I get close to the builds, and it helps to immerse myself in it, get some information, and just get started already.

That's actually how I met two of the nicest people on the planet. When I arrived at the earliest possible moment at my build hotel in India, I just wanted information. What does the site look like? What will we be doing? Who am I working with? Anxious to find out what I could from fellow travelers, I was sitting in the hotel check-in area ("lobby" is too grand a word for that room) at 6 in the morning when some Habitat volunteers checked in. And they weren't just any volunteers - they were Sherwood and Marsha Kirk. They've been doing these builds for years and always work on the President's house. Sherwood's brother Dale had even been build director for the prebuild in India. There was a meeting of house leaders at the site that day that they were going to crash - did I want to come along?

God usually works in mysterious ways, but this one was pretty blatant. Good one on ya, God.

We went to the build site - still not sure how we found it - and sat in the back of the meeting. The Kirks knew everyone there: "HE's been to our house, " "SHE's been to our house"... Sherwood even asked me why I had never been to their house: "Because I met you six hours ago, and we're in India?" (I have since been to their house - last time was to bring them a tree six weeks ago.)

I took pictures of a guy who looked exactly like my brother Bruce, so much it was surreal. I also took notes, notes on the different concerns for safety at the build site, of which the primary one was the heat. I found a list and found my House Leader's name. I was informed, and I was already part of the build. I calmed right down and just spent a joyful day laughing with my new friends.

The next day at the Opening Ceremonies, I felt like a pro. I was telling other people about the construction and the hazards, as though I'd been involved all along. I still hadn't found my House Leader, but I was starting to formulate a plan as to how I, who has no building skills and melts when it's 80 degrees out, was going to be useful on a build where the temperature was over 100 every day. I was talking to strangers, which I don't normally do, but mostly taking refuge with the people I'd met at our hotel, Velvett Country. When I started to leave my seat to go take some photos of the ceremony, I excused myself and looked down at the person I was squeezing by. It was the guy who looked exactly like my brother from the day before. Having no social skills at all, I blurted out, "I was taking pictures of you all day yesterday!" at which point he introduced me to his wife sitting next to him. I looked at his name tag: Dave Bullen. It was my House Leader. So, armed with what I'd learned at the House Leader meeting, I told him my plan. I would be his Safety Monitor and make sure he didn't lose any of the real hard workers to injury or heat. And you all know the rest of the story - its in an earlier blog posting. Suffice it to say, it worked and everybody fell for it.

So far, I've found out that the walls will already be halfway built when we get there, greatly increasing the chances that 400 people can finish 100 houses in 5 days. Yes, 400. yes, 100. Yes, 5. The rest of the house above the cinder block walls is prefab, so even I can't screw that up. Plus it's only supposed to get up to 80 degrees, which I find a lot more tolerable now that I've built in 100+ in India and 95+ in Thailand. Now I can relax. In my luxurious king-sized bed watching the Sabres game on NHL Centre Ice. Trying not to think about the next week when I'll be sleeping on a cot, in a tent with 5 other people, under a mosquito net for my own protection. Okay, I might not be totally calm now...