Blog Four

Me stamping mud.

Blog 4
Well, it’s been a while since I last wrote, but quite a lot has happened. I’d just like to point out that I would put on a huge amount of pictures, but the connection we have available to us allows for almost nothing. Okay, I think I ended on Saturday, and today is Wednesday, so I’ll get all the stuffing.

Sunday, the 6th, was a rest day (whew!), consisting of a church service and then pretty much nothing else. I’d like to say, though, that we could have made a much better church choice, because roughly two-thirds of this thing was announcements. And I’m talking like small things, like what you don’t even care about. The actual sermon was solely based towards how to be a good father, which (I would hope) doesn’t concern me. The sermon was actually good, but the only problem was that I didn’t notice the transition between announcements and sermon, so I kind of just kept reading my novel. This may sound rather bad, but believe me, you would have been doing it too. The rest of the day consisted of several movies and reading..

Monday, the 7th was the start of building. Finally! Something really productive that we can do! Aside from the “fun” outlook this building had at the beginning, the appeal soon got lost in the blistering equator sun. You ever thought about climbing in the oven in your kitchen to see what it’s like? No? Well, I have (sort of). But with this sun, there’s no need; it’s all around you, the whole time. If Matthew was a cannibal, he could have had roast Scott for lunch. Luckily he’s not… Okay, for all people who have dug holes, you know what a great thing a post-hole digger is. Right? Well, we didn’t even have a shovel. By the way, this was for the foundation posts, which needed two feet holes; about twenty of them. For digging materials, we had short metal rods which made you stay on your knees for long amounts of time while repeatedly beating the ground. I guess the philosophy was to make the ground submit to your iron will, and conveniently collapse upon itself, making a perfect two foot hole. This philosophy, however, did not come into play at this point in time, as it took at least thirty or forty minutes per hole. No, I’m not joking or exaggerating. Today, for me and Matthew, was mostly menial labor, requiring little skill, but much sweat. I’m talking MUCH. I’m fairly certain I drank like three liters. Okay, for some people (ahem, COOPER) this is almost nothing, but for me, this is like consuming Lake Ontario in an hour. (That is possible, for those non-believers out there.) Other people were making the roofing structure, and it ended up that we got the main structure up at the end of the day. According to Matthew, this was the most he had ever gotten done for house construction within one day.

The original site.

End of the first day.

Tuesday was much the same as Monday, but today mostly consisted of nailing the supports on the sides to hold up the mud siding (They’re called fitos). This takes much more time than it looks like, mostly because of Matthew and my “skill” at hammering. There was also the fact that not many people showed up, compared to Monday. The working force consisted of Matthew, me, the chairman of the fellowship, the actual owner of the new home, and two children. Hmmm. All I can say is that today was pretty discouraging. The actual building is made of mud; wet dirt, for those of you who don’t know what that is. This is a process where someone tears up the ground with a jembe (sorry, I don’t have a picture, but think of a combination of a shovel, spade, and rake, with a short handle), and then water is poured, and then people stamp around in it, until the right consistency is achieved. This takes a long time, since we are making a ton of mud. Today, though, we only got a fourth of the house done, due to the conditions I specified above. The coordinator of the unit, Constant, who is a great guy, gave the fellowship a serious dressing-down because of their unwillingness to help. On the way back, he had to get a different motorbike, because his had popped a tire, so as Matthew and I anxiously looked at the exhaust, it belched gouts of smoke that could rival Mt. Wannahawkalugie (It does exist! Just watch Finding Nemo trademark!)

End of the day on Tuesday.

Wednesday, which is when I’m writing this, was pretty much the completion of our part of this project. (Did I mention that my mom pretty much paid for this whole thing?) The whole day consisted of mudding, which is seriously tiring. It was mostly all right, though, since the roof had been put up the following day, so we got some shade while working. The walls came up really quickly today, and a ton of people started helping, due to the speech Constant gave yesterday. The children helping were really having fun, too. As you know, mud+children=explosion/fun/insanity/throwing of/2. Anyway, we built up the wall to a certain point, where we left the rest, which is almost nothing for the fellowship to finish up. We will be coming back on Friday to check up on progress, and will be officially handing it over next Thursday. Job well done. Oh yeah, Marian and Rule, and Jack came from Dutchland. Wait, that would be Holland. They are long time visitors of Kimilili, and know the place well.

End of work for us.