We have every right to be proud of what 'we' have achieved, as long as we remember that the 'we' includes the people from Ibumu! In fact, most of the credit needs to go to the people of Ibumu. They have done all the preparations for the building work to commence, and worked alongside us during those mornings at the building site.
What the people of Ibumu did
Foundations
We arrived to find the foundations already prepared. We were very grateful for that, at least I was! Especially after I heard what it meant to get those foundations in place. The foundations had to be dug. Easy to say, much harder to do. I saw how difficult it was to break the ground when they started the foundations of the preschool while we were in Ibumu (more about this in another blog). The ground is dry and very, very hard. It takes a lot of strength and energy to break the ground. The result is large lumps of earth that have to be broken and scooped out with a spade. This has to be done repeatedly, until the foundations are wide and deep enough. Factor in that is dry, dusty work being done under the baking hot sun!
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| The preschool foundation being built |
The photo above is of the foundations of the preschool (next to the church) being built. It is not related to the secondary school building that we were working on, but it gives a good idea of what is entailed in laying the foundations of the building.
Once the foundations are dug, they have to be filled with rocks. I guess this has to be done in a 'build a puzzle way' as the foundation ends up being very even-sided. Surely this is not an easy goal to achieve with the motley collection of rocks to work with.
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| Even edges to the preschool foundation |
The foundations are finished off with a layer of cement to create a smooth base for building with the bricks. This was also done and ready!
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| Smooth foundation! |
Building materials
Large piles of bricks were ready for us to use for building. I already told you that our first job was to move them from these big piles closer to the spots where those building were positioning themselves. Those bricks were not bought from a merchant and delivered in a big truck, as it would be here at home. No, the bricks had to be made in the village.
The bricks were made by hand. I don't know the whole process, but I guess the earth had to be dug, made into mud (with water that had to be brought some distance), and then shaped. They were individually shaped, by hand, and left to dry.
You could often see the imprints of the grass on one side of a brick. The individuality of the bricks also meant there were often bits stuck on the side or slightly odd shapes that had to be corrected with a swift chop of a trowel. It was quite satisfying to chop a 'wart' off successfully! That was until I saw one of the fundi chopping a brick to size - cutting all the edges to exactly the right, straight size while holding it in one hand! They are truly very gifted!
I have to admit that I am just guessing about the process of making the bricks, adding together in my own mind the snippets of information I've heard with the things I have seen, but I hope it is fairly accurate. I know the bricks had to be fired to strengthen them and I would guess that it was done in the way I've seen around the village. The bricks are stacked together, with space at the bottom to build a fire underneath.
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| Bricks have already been removed from the top of this pile |
River sand is a rather important part of the mortar or udongo mixture and had to be collected and brought to the building site. That would mean hiring a tractor and trailer again, loading sand onto the trailer (with spades) and then offloaded again at the site. The tractor driver had to be paid for his services, and I automatically assumed that the cost for this was being covered by the money we had raised as a team, but I was reliably informed that the village paid for this themselves.
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| The tractor and trailer, topping up the supply of bricks |
Another essential element to building is the very scarce commodity of water. There are about 5 water points in the village, all some considerable distance from the building site. I am rubbish at guessing distance, but I would venture a guess that the nearest it is at least 2 km away. We used a lot of water! Apart from the mixing the udongo, it was also used to wet the previous day's building. I am not sure exactly what it does, but think it has to do with stopping the mortar from drying out too quickly and cracking. There was no handy hosepipe with water on tap. No, it had to be brought to the site on foot. This was mostly done by the women in the village. There was a holding tank built at the site, which could hold about 1000 liters. By the time we arrived at the site at about 10am, this tank would be nearly full. Women had been walking back and forth during the early morning to fill the tank! They would continue doing this throughout the day as the water was being used up very quickly. On a few occasions, a guy brought water in jerry cans on his motorbike and (I speak under correction here as I didn't actually see this myself) once the tractor and trailer brought a load of water.
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| Women coming back from delivering water just as we are walking to the site |
Every day
Many villagers joined us on the building site each day. Like us, they are mostly novices at building and had to learn about building, just like we did. They also sacrificed their time to come and help build the school. They mixed and carried udongo, filled buckets for us, passed bricks... everything I did, but only so much more efficiently. They are more used to the temperature and doing things without the help of electric machines - and it showed. They never had to take a break under the 'rest tree'!
The school so far
It would be remiss of me to not mention the other classrooms that have been built already. In 2007, every person over the age of 18 in Ibumu gave 10 000 Tanzanian Shillings (about £3.30) towards the building of a secondary school. This may not sound like a lot of money to us here in the UK, who (according to the media) can easily spend nearly that much on a daily brand name morning coffee. But to some of the people of Ibumu, this is a lot of money, particularly if there are more than one adult in your household! With this money, they built a number of classrooms to start the secondary school. The classrooms are practically finished, with only two classrooms needing their floor completed and smoothed over with cement.
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| The classrooms in the background |
Building on this...
You may wondering why we had to go to Ibumu to help build the laboratory if the villagers are so capable of doing this themselves. I can only guess, but I would think that it has something to do with this question:
If you are facing an enormous task, you may lose momentum and motivation over time. The secondary school is a high priority to the village and they have already sacrificed a lot to start the school. But faced with a shortage of funds versus the cost of completing the required laboratory, it may be that they needed new motivation. So, our partnering with them is like having a lot of extra mouths to help eat the elephant - it makes the task look more achievable. The promise of our coming and our presence there motivated people afresh. The biggest encouragement was when we were told that a few qualified builders who live in the village also joined us to help build, without expecting payment!
I am fully aware of the enormity of the task of completing the school building. We 'nipped in' to do a bit of building, re-energising the community to continue. But the building is only window height - it needs completing to full height and then roofing. This will cost money that the people of Ibumu do not really have.
I so wish that we could find/raise money to help them. I now know the people of Ibumu. I have seen with my own eyes the need for this school to be completed...
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