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Week Five's Work is Complete

This week started with an additional four workers on site, two of which are women.

The work of building up the ground level is an on going job in it's self with lorry load after lorry load having to be brought in. Due to the cost of hiring a truck for so long we are now looking at the possibility of purchasing a second hand truck. Negotiations are underway as I write on a truck  that has just been imported and sitting in the port.

Pastor Leonard is proudly showing a friend and a few of the children that will be staying in the houses around the foundations of the first house. The girl in red is very pretty and bubbly but she is HIV Positive. It's quite a sobering thought.

Each morning this is a common sight with many men and now many women sitting by the main entrance gates hoping that they will be asked to do some work. Through time as the project progress we will be able to employ more from this willing crowd:

Here the foundations for the veranda are being filled in:

Many UK men would struggle just to lift this 25lt container of water. One of our women makes this look effortless. She has had to carry this water from the village:

What you are seeing here is the much larger area of fencing which has just been completed. This is where the remaining five houses are being built. Work has already begun on three of these with the foundations strips being marked out and digging already underway.

By the end of the week the veranda foundation for the first house has been filled up, compacted and ready for the concrete floor. At the same time the levels around the house are still being raised.

Our large 40' container which contains tools and materials is due to arrive from the UK any time soon so we have started preparing the ground next to our smaller 20' container so that the container will have good solid concrete foundations. These will also be raised a little in case of flooding.

We have now complete fenced of half of the whole site that we own. The fenced of area will contain the orphanage consisting of six small houses. This photo is taken from within the area that isn't fenced of. We hope to be developing this area after the orphanage is complete. We will more than likely be involved in the design and layout of the site but whether we will be here to supervise the building is yet unknown. This site will hopefully provide services that will support the local community such as a Vocational School and an Aids Clinic, however as yet no money has been raised for this. Currently we are still looking to raise an additional £33,000 to complete the orphanage.

In the distance you can see the fence for the orphanage. It gives you an idea as to how big this site is:

Here are another couple of images of home made toys that the kids have in and around our site:

You saw the mud bricks in last weeks images. Here is a house that is just going up that is made with these mud bricks. I watched as the workers cut the bricks out of a hole in the ground and stacked them up ready to build.

Although there is water to Gatumba, where we are building the orphanage, most people will not ever be able to afford to have it piped to their houses or huts so this is the most common way for them to get their water.