Day 40 - Two More Fill-ins

Today was quite fulfilling, though exhausting, to the point of dropping dead; just what we want while we’re here. We filled in two more foundations that we had previously built. One at the True Light Primary School that is in our village only 150 yards from our house, and one up at Betty’s house that we made on Monday. It was a little drizzly this morning and we were afraid we were going to get rained out, luckily the rain never really came down, only a light trickle. We arrived at True Light and they had the extra clay we had told them we needed. It was just Leslie, Heidi and I on this project and it turned out to be a little mistake that we did not have more help. Joshua, the man that was up at Equator P.S. was there ready and willing to help us out. He’s a funny old man. Totally interested in what we’re doing but at the same time full of questions in broken English that we can barely make out. Sometimes it’s frustrated to have him around, but today I learned to appreciate him and realize that he’s exactly what we have been looking for as far as someone to teach and keep the building going once we have left the country. Working just the three of us with the help of Joshua just wasn’t enough. We had to mix the adobe mixture and pack it ourselves. That takes a long time and takes a lot of effort, more difficult that it may sound. We wished we had another 2 people with us to help mix and/or pack. Now we’ll know for next time. We ended up having just about enough adobe for the stove, actually, it was a little less than we would have liked but it did the job. We had to use bricks to help fill up space, it wouldn’t have worked otherwise. It took us around 5 hours to complete and we were beat afterwards. To make it worse, we had another to fill, at least I had another one to fill, Leslie and Heidi had something else to attend in the afternoon.

Amber returned from Mukono after having been at the bakery. I was glad to see her around so that she could go with me to fill in the second stove. I was not excited about it because I was so tired. The rain started to pick up as if it wanted to come down but ended as we walked out the door. Joshua met us up at Betty’s house and again helped us out and learned some things as well. Betty was incredibly helpful which I appreciated very much. She was just as much invested in making the stove as we were. She had supplied all of the materials except the cement, a big accomplishment for a single mother with a few kids. We didn’t end up having enough clay over which I began to panic. We had known this the last time we were there but didn’t remember until we saw the half-filled bag of clay upon arrival. We decided it was ant-hill soil or nothing at all. We had already spent 1000 shillings to get up there and we weren’t about to turn around and head for home. Betty began cutting away at an ant-hill when the termites erupted from beneath. They were the ugliest looking things I think I’ve every seen. Little green bodies with a head and pinchers the same size as the body. The pinchers looked sharp and Betty decided to demonstrate for us. She reached down and allows one of the irrupted “ants” to attach to her finger. The thing was ridiculously strong and I could tell it would kill if that thing pinched you anywhere. Later on in the day when we had found another ant-hill that had been burned out and gotten the soil from, we were back at her house mixing the clay, soil, sand, fiber and water to make the adobe when out comes marching an “ant.” She again went to let the thing grab on to her. Except, this time the ant was a little more aggravated than the last. It grabbed on and sunk it’s teeth into her finger. She even squealed and grabbed the body and pinched it, killing it, to get it off of her. I watched the thing sink it’s teeth in her finger, it was horrible. I didn’t get to close to the mixture after that.

I’ve killed a total of 4 mosquitos through my net while sitting here in my bed typing. With out these nets we would be absolute toast, welted all over with bites, I wouldn’t be able to sleep without one.

The stove turned out good, we were very pleased. We ended up having just enough of our mixture, including bricks stacked in the bottom to take up room. Had we not used bricks, we would not have had enough; thanks heaven for bricks everywhere. It took us a good 2 hours to pack the foundation, a little longer than expected, but reasonable none the less. Betty was very excited and we told her that we had one request after having built her stove. The request was that she would teach her friends and help them build their own stoves in their homes. She will be another great asset to our cause, I can feel it. She got all nice today and said, “I need your phone numbers to I can call you when you have left this place!” We were touched. It was nice to hear that she enjoyed us being there, so much so that she wanted to keep in touch.

It’s been so great to meet so many great people, people I may never see again in my life. At the beginning of my stay here I felt like I would never meet and become good friends with any body in particular, just simple friendships with many people. I was wrong, and I’m glad I was. Well, it’s time to go to bed, I’m beat and I need my strength in the morning. Until then.