Building a house

Last week we got word that there was a woman out in a tribal village whose house had burned down and who lacked the means of rebuilding it herself. Our group helped knock down the brittle walls yesterday while we worked on the sink, so we joined today for some more cleanup and construction preparation.

We helped remove charred debris from where the house stood before, knocked down some cinder block walls, pulled out wooden posts that will be replaced with cement ones, and hauled who knows how much sand up a steep hill to be mixed with cement. 

 

This explains all the spicy food!

 

We hauled it up this hill, and around this corner and started piling it up by the cinder blocks.

After about an hour of moving it bucket by bucket, fireman brigade style, we were exhausted, sweating profusely, and unable to wipe the dirt off our clothes and arms because we were so sticky. And we had barely even made a dent on the pile! We called it a day at that point and may or may not have stopped at KFC on the way home for lunch. Some things are just good for the soul when you’ve worked so hard! We will continue this project over the next week or so. It’s a lot of work to build a house and I honestly don’t know how this lady would have done it herself. She has a really amazing teenage son who was working harder than any of us hauling dirt, and when we got there she was shoveling dirt off the foundation of the house while holding a baby on her back, but the rest of the villagers just sat and watched while we worked, which aside from making you feel super awkward also makes you wonder why they haven’t stepped in and assisted her! It’s such a different way of life out there—toddlers walking around in the mud without pants or shoes on, ladies carrying big loads on their backs looped around their foreheads so they can carry babies, chickens roaming the yards, the nastiest slope-backed pig I’ve ever seen, and human poop in the street..I’ve never been any place quite like it. It has sure made us grateful for the hard bed and non-air conditioned room we live in here, but we appreciate the opportunity to help people who honestly need it!