Girts and blocks, lots of them, were installed by our Week 5 team.

Kathy did the detail cutting and fitting of all the small metal pour stop pieces that go around the columns of the second floor pan decking. They were set into place, numbered and ready for the welder, with his Flintstones era machine, to tack into place.

Claudia and Karlyn laid the first course of concrete blocks all around the building perimeter. The fun part was mixing the mortar in a wheelbarrow. That happens only after you shake each shovel full through a sifting screen, because you can't just order sand here....oh no, the load comes with lots of extra rocks in it.

Of course when the boys arrived to work in the afternoon they were eager to dive for the masonry tools and 'help' set blocks. Our challenge has been to interact and teach them in small groups. They really want to move as a pack of 7-9 kids, all doing exactly the same thing, wrangling over the same few tools. It would be great for each of us to work with just one or two kids on a task, but they really don't want to do that. Guess they aren't used to individual attention in their environment.  Safety in numbers.

Briggs and Nathaniel bolted a huge number of steel girts into place. We hoisted them on lines and they did their imitation of cliff climbing to get them all secured. Now the building is really starting to show its shape with all the window sills and headers in place.

On the local frontier, we had our first few local people spend 3 days volunteering with us. They were Boss Rena, his wife and 2 sons. It was a treat to have their family energy added into ours. Except for the boys who come for a couple of hours each afternoon, there have been no local volunteers participating. At present, we are narrowly hanging onto the schedule but could sure use more help. Volunteering does not seem to be part of the culture here, even with the fact that we provide a great lunch for each person.  Most people believe we are being paid to work here and have lots of money to spend on local labor. This idea persists even though announcements have been made at church and around town. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

So, we have touched the half way mark this week.  Onward to roofing and windows!
Rome

See all project photos