Structural Engineering???

Hey Everyone,

Now I am getting really bad at updating! I have been a busy lil' bee lately. I have so many things to update on that I am not quite sure where to start.

I think I shall start with last week-end. My friend Anerico, who we are working with to try to get an agricultural program going is currently building a new house. He was mudding his house last Saturday and he invited us to come along and see. I would equate mudding a house with a good old fashioned barn raising. It is a lot of work, but you get your friends and family to come out and help then you all eat together when it is done. Unfortunately, Rachel and I had double booked ourselves, so we weren't able to stay for the whole day, we just stopped by for a couple hours.

So... this is how house construction works in Kenya:

First, holes are dug for the posts. You can either do this yourself or hire a fundi (worker) to do it. The standard rate for each hole the 'surveyer' digs is 10ksh per hole (about 12.5 cents!). Then the roof frame is put up, sometimes the metal roof is placed at this point. It depends on whether it is rainy season or not. We have a few more weeks until rainy season starts, so Anerico has not put his roof on quite yet. It is a bit of a risk, the mud will dry better in the sun, but if it rains he might be in trouble! Then, the horizontal reinforcers are nailed between the larger posts. The reinforcers are usually collected or cut down from the property that the house is going to be built on. If there aren't any trees large enough, the vertical posts need to be purchased, but usually a big log is bought and manually split into smaller pieces after.

The mud for the walls is then placed between the reinforcers. They bring lots of water and mix it with the dirt that is in the floor of the house.

After seeing how it was done, Rachel and I decided to try our hand at it!

Bending over like that is a little bit hard...but overall it was actually a lot of fun. Here we are starting to get the hang of it.

We wanted to keep going, but had to get to another meeting. This is what we were able to finish though!

From here, this is left to dry for a few days. Once these walls are all dry, another layer of mud is placed on either side of the wall. Then, the new layers are also left to dry. Once these are dry, the walls are 'smeared'. The traditional way to smear is to mix cow dung with clay and spread it over the walls and floors. The is done every few weeks for the floor and every few months for the walls. The floors are done more often to keep dust down and also to prevent fleas from living in the floor. If people want to make their structure more permanent (and if they can afford it) they will smear with cement.

All in all it was a pretty fun day!

Other than this, I have been very busy working on a bunch of different projects. I think I told you about how the director Amanda does most of the fundraising for the project through her shop in Canada. She wanted to get a calendar together with pictures of the kids from the school to sell at the store, so Rachel and I have been busy taking pictures and also getting the kids to do some little drawings to include. I think we are all finished up with this project, Amanda is getting them printed in Nairobi, so I am very interested to see what it looks like in the end!

I have also been very busy doing some follow up on projects that other volunteers were working on. Sometimes, when there isn't a volunteer here following up, the projects don't get completed as quickly. Last year, Amanda did some fundraising for a house for a widow that she found in the community. I am trying to follow up on all the items that were originally included in the budget.

One of main focuses, however, has been the well at Tumaini School. The well that was originally installed on the site was not done properly (this is pretty common because they are all hand dug wells), so it is currently dry and has been for awhile. This is a huge problem because they need water to wash hands, brush teeth and cook lunch. Right now they are collecting water from nearby wells and carrying it to the school.

We have been arranging to get fundi's from the area to come and look at it and give us a quote for fixing it. The first person we had come around gave us a ridiculous price. He saw white people and automatically tripled the price, it would have been cheaper to dig a whole new well! We met with a different one last week, who gave us a more reasonable price. It seems pretty cheap when converted to Canadian, but the going rate to dig a new well is usually 100 ksh per foot. That is about $1.25! Next Monday, we are going to visit other wells that this same fundi has dug or repaired, to make sure that he actually knows what he is doing. After that I am hoping he can start doing the work right away. It is very important that we get the work done during dry season or they won't be able to dig deep enough.

Another part if this 'well' task is to link the project to the community and the school. It is very important that the community feels ownership for this project. Our idea is to hold a fundraising event. They won't need to fundraise the whole amount for the well, but a small contribution would make everyone feel part of the work. We are planning on having a big 'family fun day'. We want to have each of the kids bring in a small amount of money (very small, like 10 ksh....12.5 cents) to participate in the day. We are going to have three legged races and potato sack races. I think it should be pretty fun and also a good way to get to know some of the parents of the kids at the school.

That's about it for now...I have to get going because Rachel and I have planned a week-end away in Kisumu! I'm very excited. It will be fun to go to the 'big city',,,,maybe have a cold beer? YAY!

Bye for now.