The Building Team . . .

During this Aid Expedition, the building team is working at 2 sites.  Half of the team is building a playground at the Catalyst Foundations school.  The other half of the team is beginning the construction of a house only a few blocks away from the school and where our medical team set up.  I was able to see the construction taking place on the playground daily, and I had intended to see the home construction, but we were so busy at the medical site that I didn't get there until the last day.

 The playground started as a grass covered area and the team had to dig up all of the grass before they could pour the cement.  I don't know how they did it considering it was between 95-103 degrees each day.  I was very fortunate since the medical team was in the shade all day, and the heat still got to me on Monday and Brianna didn't feel well later in the week too!  We had quite a few people on the building team who were ill from either heat or food related illnesses, but they kept going like Energizer Bunnies!  

  

  

This is a picture of when the project was almost finished.  The team was in the process of installing the "sails" that will provide shade!  We had a ribbon cutting ceremony at night when the local community cooked dinner for us.  More details on that later!

This is a picture of the family that will move into the new house that is being built and they are standing in front of their current house.

To get to the building site, everybody needed to cross the monkey bridge!That means everybody and some of the supplies needed to cross over the narrow bridge.  We may actually be considered fortunate since in 2008 I saw monkey bridges that were only several inches wide!  It was amazing to see how easily the kids ran across those tiny bridges.  I'm sure Brianna could do it since they are about as wide as a balance beam, but I don't think she could do it while carrying a 40lb bag of rice.  At least not without a little practice!

The larger supplies came by boat.  

The walls are literally going up around one of the new residents!

When I walked over on Thursday, the walls were almost done and they were ready to start the roof soon.  Here is also a picture of the living room.  

  These are a few words from my friend Sandy who was on the building team.  "Work has been progressing along but with very little tools and no machines, everything is done by hand. I am on the house team. yesterday we laid bricks in out 18'x6'' two room "house". Today we began the floor. We first stuffed rice bags with clay that was dug out of the ground from area that will be the latreen and carried it to the floors. The clay was then pressed down with a weighted hand press. Next step was to carry sand from about 500 yards up a narrow path in pails and rice bags to cover the clay and press that down. Next was to carry rocks in same manor....we finished the back room and were told to wait for the "inspector" before we continued further. Of course in the process, the front wall accidentally got knocked over. It was a labor intensive day to say the least. The heat is unbearable, I have never sweat and been so dirty at the end of a day as I have been the past two."