Construction Progress

I had notes on the progress of each aspect of the construction progress – trusses, walls, windows and doors – but, with little time to write and no good internet connection within an hour of the site, we have decided to post a series of pictures of the construction during the past couple weeks.

Windows take shape

Charles and Kule make trusses

Bill's frustration with the less-than-perfect doors

Bricking up back wall

Russ

Bill cutting metal for solar panel supports

The first truss is attached

Bill

Kule, Moses and our student apprentice Sarpio

Solar Team have faith, there will be a roof for your arrival!

Cam's Visit

Cam has come and gone. He made many friends here and, although he may have caused a national g-nut shortage, Uganda is richer for his visit. He spent hours teaching people how to play the guitar that he brought from Canada, and then left it for the students. He also dug ditches for water drainage, helped erect scaffolding and painted. But most importantly he really bonded with the Ugandans. He was vaccinated against everything but we think he still got the African bug – he will likely be back.
 

Cam teaching guitar

Trench digging master

Breakfast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cam and Nat prime the plywood face of the school

The Groundbreaker in Action

We are very happy with our decision to use all groundbreaker bricks for the walls of the school. It has proven to be a fast and cheap way to build a nice looking structure. It has taken some time to get people trained in the machine’s operation and the locals are still slow, although, we are working to improve both skills and work ethic. The guys we hired from Makarere University are on contract to make 450 bricks a day and they finish by about 2pm, and they have also been good teachers. Nat and I decided to learn the machine and we were able to make about 70 bricks an hour after an hour of practice. It’s hard work but the real trick is getting the right amount of soil (red muram soil, sand and cement mixed about 6:1:1) into the machine before compression, otherwise, you must open it up and add or remove a little before compressing again. We are in Kampala now but we have left six of the workers on site with a contract to make 500 bricks per day. This is their first unmonitored brick making – we are all hoping for the best.

 

The five guys from Kampala work the groundbreaker

Bricks are stacked for a day before use

Large interlocking bricks make the walls go up quickly

It would really be fantastic if the groundbreaker technology caught on in Bwera. Currently, most small scale construction is done using burnt mud bricks. This traditional technique requires that bricks be fashioned out of mud then dried in the sun. After this, they are stacked into a beehive shape and wood is burnt under them for the final curing. This contributes significantly to deforestation and only a portion of the bricks are usable because the inside bricks are too charred and the outside bricks are not cured enough. Then, if it rains hard before the bricks are burnt, the bricks are spoiled. These traditional bricks are also irregular sizes and require a large amount of mortar during building. In comparison, the groundbreaker bricks are uniform and interlocking so need very little mortar to hold them together (if any for a temporary structure). Also, they are usable in four hours and cure completely in two weeks. With the burning of bricks now banned in Kenya and Tanzania due to deforestation concerns, there is reason to hope that the groundbreaker could be a building revolution in East Africa.

Kids in Kampala forming mud bricks in preparation for burning

A stack of burnt bricks is ready for use

We got back to Kampala a couple days ago. We are here to gather some more equipment, have a break and pickup the next wave of volunteers. Simon arrived on Friday night and we have been enjoying some long walks the last couple days to show him and Cam some of the city. Colleen arrives in just under a week. Nat and I have a few more posts we have been working on – some written out, some still in our minds. We will try to get them onto the website over the next week. Here are a couple now.

The site

Kathy is our team’s resident Mother Teresa. She is an obstetrics nurse and has been engaging the local clinics and hospitals to see how she can best be of assistance. But locals have also taken note of her presence and there is now a constant stream of somehow afflicted people arriving at the site. Most are cases that have persisted after past treatments have failed. There is the young man down the road who can barely leave his room because he has had some sort of general weakness that took over his body five years ago – he is a bright guy and was a math teacher who may now do some tutoring at the school some evenings. There is the middle age guy who is crippled by arthritis, the young girl with the bowed leg, and the little guy with the enlarged head. There is the little one year old that likely has cancer in his sinuses and has trouble feeding and sleeping – he, his mother and a translator have come with us to Kampala to go to the cancer clinic at Mulago Hospital (Dr Sparling thinks it is likely Burkett’s Lymphoma which is common here and often treatable). Kathy has also treated injuries during the school collapse, cuts on the job site, and others. The community and our team are all grateful for her presence.

Kids getting water

The students wrote their last exam on Tuesday and are now on break until February. Most of the students don’t want to go home. Many live with extended or segregate family and are not well cared for. Some have had to resort to prostitution and other desperate measures to pay for food while they are away from school. The students and teachers asked us to pay for food for the kids for the next two months so they could live at the school until the next semester starts – it was a tough but clear choice. It costs 6.8 million shillings (about $3,000) a month to feed the students, money that is mostly raised by Cobra music and drama performances. We could pay for their food for the next two months or we could build most of the second building or buy a plot of land that they could farm to grow food into the future. We decided that we had to work towards long-term solutions.
As a treat for the students on their last day we offered them a movie night. As darkness came, the students collected at the site. We setup my laptop with Kathy’s external speakers and hundreds of students crowded around. They squealed and laughed under the stars while they watched Slumdog Millionaire. It was heartwarming.

Students lineup to get supper from the school kitchen. They get one of two meals - posho (maize flour in water) and beans or tapioca (cassava flour and water).

Workers in their new vests

Temporary building on the far left beside the small kitchen huts, the brick making tent in the middle and the second building lines are strung out on the right

Since our last post, Nat and I have traveled to Kampala to pickup Bill, Kathy and Cam. We spent a couple days gathering extra tools and equipment before touring the city a bit with Cam. On Sunday we drove back to Bwera by the southern route passing through Mbarara. The southern route is a great way to arrive into Kasese District since you have to pass through the Rift Valley and Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Elections are in February and posters cover everything in Kampala

A woman walks through the streets of Kampala

The road through Queen Elizabeth National Park meets the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains and Bwera

Baboon on the side of the road

Elephants and a rainstorm in the distance

Cam with elephants in the distance

  

Bill and Kathy

Peter shoots elephants from the roof

Upon our arrival we were greeted by many students, music and dancing. Unfortunately, darkness fell and the rain started moments after we arrived but that did not stop the party. Students crammed themselves under a tarp, huddled around a CD player, electric piano and some soundboards, “shaking their bones” to popular Ugandan favorites. Eventually the students were extricated from the tarp-party and joined us in watching a fantastic performance by the cultural drama group. It was a wonderful arrival.

Party under the tarp

John dancing under the tarp with the students

Drama group performs cultural dances in the rain and mud

Dancers pull faces during the traditional dance

 
We are trying to balance many factors during the construction and, although the construction is going well, we have had some issues. We want the building(s) to go up quickly, we want to use local labour and we want to be respectful of local relationships and culture. We have had some problems as a result of hiring the five guys from Kampala. Although they generally work much harder and are far more skilled, they are not trusted by the local workers in Bwera because they are of a different tribe. We have also had some problems resulting from Cobra Association’s obligation to use certain businesses for construction materials and subcontracting. For example, the metal door fabricator had helped Cobra in the past with other projects so it was important to have him make the doors – he did a very poor job. However, despite problems like these, we are ahead of schedule.

Kids inspect the progress

Snow is visible in the distant mountains

John and Jill left yesterday. On their last night we did a taste test - Vic Gin vs. banana spirit made locally.

Yesterday was an exciting day at the school. It collapsed. It happened in the afternoon during a final physics exam (we suspect some of the students may have been wishing for something like that to occur at the time!). The temporary building was packed and students were likely leaning on some of the old supports. Fortunately and amazingly, none of the students were seriously injured – just some minor cuts and bruises. Nat and I funded the construction of the temporary building during the summer of 2007 but nothing had been done for the structure since that time. It was surprising that it did not come down in one of the more violent windstorms that punish the tents most evenings. Luckily, the students only have a few more days of exams before they are on holidays until February. We are going to push to get a third classroom completed before their return. We have set up the classrooms under our building shelters to keep the kids out of the sun while they complete their last few days of exams.

Before collapse

After collapse

Amazing that nobody was seriously hurt

Tests are now conducted outdoors

Notes from the field

Joel digs a trench around the tent shared by the five from Kampala as a storm threatens

So far, we have had little time to write but we do want to share some stories from the last few days. There have been so many funny and trying moments it is impossible to relay them all but here are some that stick out in our minds. These are more like notes than stories but they are better than nothing.

A couple days in, we had a visit from the city engineer who threatened to stop the project. He claimed we needed an approved building and site plan – paying to approve building locations for buildings that may be built sometime in the future - and we needed to hire an architect to do so. Although I could see his point, few building sites ever go through this process. Nelson said he was just trying to get a bribe from us. Fortunately for the project, Nelson is well connected. The Ugandan Minister of Defense is a friend of his and will assist us if necessary. Incidentally, the minister is also planning to throw us a party at the completion of the school and he is a big supporter of Ground Breaker construction (the doctor at Makerere who sold is the machine also built a house for the minister).

Pete and Nat with the afternoon session students

Lunch of posho and beans is prepared daily for the students

Home sweet home

It has been a bit difficult to track who is working and who is watching, despite our efforts of trying to keep onlookers way from the site. Today there were people working who Russ didn’t recognize. As is turns out, some of the workers, who we have been trying to train on a daily basis, decided to work in their fields and send their uncles instead.  Today, Nat and I are going to look for reflective vests in Kasese to make the workers more identifiable.

Pouring the first foundation

Our construction methods have changed a few times over the last few weeks and some materials have come down in price. As a result our overall construction costs have come down slightly. Now, with the foundation of the first building complete, we have decided to dig and frame the foundation for the second three room classroom block. We are not sure if we will continue too far with the building of that structure but we will at least get it started. We will have to see what we can scrape together to make that building happen. It would be fantastic to at least come close to finishing the second building too. It is both painful and inspiring to see over 600 students cram themselves into three small rooms to get any education they can get their hands on.

It took about a week to build the foundation for the first foundation, here are the costs (minus a significant prior investment in tools and equipment that will remain with the school). Generous wages for 17 workers, with a range of abilities, $84/day. Two meals a day for those workers, $111/week. Two truckloads of hand-pounded gravel (making big rocks into small rocks with a hammer), $133, delivery included. Two truckloads of sand, $71. Twenty three bags of cement, $235. Wood for framing, roughly $200 - but much of that was cut from the forest and milled by hand before our arrival and can be reused.

As you can see, after all the expensive prep to make this project happen, it is not outrageously expensive to do the building itself. We have the skilled workers here and everyone is happy to work. It’s now time to stretch our shillings.

The building site