Alone We Can Do So Little, Together We Can Do So Much

Arriving at Bario, we were received with shaky and unpredictable electricity. At first thought, such an occurrence in a city setting would cease schedules from going on as planned. However, in Bario this was not the case. Electricity was but a slight downside to packed schedules that the local people had.

Nevertheless, Batch 2 was all set to clean out the hydrodam (that powered the electricity in Bario Asal), as to leave with having made a sustainable and positive change for the locals. After a busy first week of following our Sinah’s around and doing various community services, we settled for a full day at the dam on our first Saturday morning there.

At first glance, cleaning the dam seemed like a simple task that would be conveniently finished in a matter of hours. That my friends, was the naivety in all of us, speaking. We started off, digging up small chunks of dirt with shovels or even with our bare hands. A couple of hours passed and we started to congratulate each other on the progress we were making. “Woah! Guys, we did quite a lot ah?" I remember myself say. Little did we know that what we had done in those mere hours, was but a speck of what we would be doing later that day. We barely grazed the surface of that dirt clogged dam, that morning.

Us attempting to dig up the hydro dam with our bare hands!

We were accompanied by Agan (he conveniently lived just two doors away from Tepu Sinah Rang's place), who I must say makes digging up 12 feet of dirt, look like a walk in a park. Just having Agan accompany and guide us that day was truly inspiring. With having spent only 7 days in Bario, I had noticed a strong lacking of young people in the premises. It was encouraging to see Agan’s sense of responsibility for his home, amplified through the simple task of cleaning the dam with us.

Agan starting us off by digging up the first pile of dirt.

After what seemed to be an already tiring few hours at the dam, we returned again, this time joined by the remaining two individuals that completed Batch 2. Anna and Andrew immediately stepped up to the task at hand and gelled together with the team in just a matter of moments. With the help of his friend, Agan managed to open up the gate that was restricting relevant progress from happening (we didn’t quite know that at the time). This time, water rushed out with great current and that’s when we began to get down and dirty.

The group shovelling the dirt from upward because of the strong current.

Fast forward a good 4 hours later, we took a moment to take in the work that we had just accomplished. It was alarming just recognizing the amount of shoveling, digging and rock maneuvering we had done in just a matter of hours. Helen Keller once said "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.". This was a quote that was certainly magnified that day. It got me appreciating the relevance and strength of teamwork. I guess you can only trust my word of mouth on this, but that hydro dam had to be one of the biggest cleaning projects I have ever experienced!

So many times, an individual could have said "I've got this!" and tried to do something by their own strength; like attempting to move a humongous rock that was limiting the current flow. But, it is safe to say that everyone humbled themselves for the better and asked each other for help. I can even remember the moments that strongly amplified teamwork in our group; like when various teammates offered to take over a certain tasks, when others began to feel the tiredness overwhelm them. In the end, the team slowly fell into a rhythm of some digging and some shoveling in order to speed up the process, without being asked to.

The group falling into a rhythm of things.

True to it’s nature, encouragement and basic teamwork was the key to a successful outcome. I can still clearly remember our coordinators Rhon and Daniel commending us on the progress we were slowly making, and further encouraging us to work harder even amidst our immensely tired state. As much as we just wanted to give up and call it a day, those basic words of encouragement implored us press on and finally finish the job. This paired with the great sense of humor and cheerful spirit that everyone had, was just the perfect recipe to a fruitful outcome.

Here's a little snippet of the fun we had!

At a later glance, I related our initial naivety of the situation to the iceberg concept where only 10% (surface of the dam) of the iceberg is visible and the other 90% (that took forever to dig up) remains underwater. It was a good lesson to all of us to not judge a situation by how it looked outwardly. Nevertheless, even though the 90% was apparent, we successfully dug it all up with just one solution- teamwork! 

Happy and tired faces after a job well done!