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Week Eight's Work is Complete

Week eight begins with yet more locals gathering at the gates hoping to be employed. This week we employed a total of 25 local workers. At the end of the week when we added up all the wages for all the 25 workers it amounted to about £200 in total. Here the labour is so cheap and the materials are so expensive.

The block manufacturing is going very well with twice as many blocks being produced this week compared to last week:

Progress is good. Three of the six houses now have the main foundation walls up to floor level and three out of the four septic tanks having been dug out. We are starting to get some rain so you will see that the walls have been protected with used cement bags. All the concrete is still being mixed by hand as our container has still not arrived from the UK. We did get some news as to it where abouts. Apparently it is still in Dar-es-salaam with no time given for when it will start its journey by road to Bujumbura:

Here you will see house number 2 & 3 foundation wall up to floor level.

As previously mentioned we are paying a lot for the hire of a truck to bring the additional materials that we now need to raise the houses above the potential flood levels. With the help of Rema we have been looking at many trucks that are for sale. We finally had two to choose from and one of these was the truck that we have been hiring. We finally agreed that, as far as we can tell, the green truck that we have been hiring is the best for what we need and in the best condition. It is also a Toyota which means that we will be able to get spares more easily.

You will also see an additional two white faces in these pictures. One of these is Ian Mayer. Ian Mayer was with Hugh Henderson (Mission International Director) on the team to Burundi in 2006 with his wife Judith, he was the guy who made the video of the site that we first saw. It had footage of all the children and where they were living. He payed us a visit to see how things were progressing, however and I don't believe by chance, he is also a lorry driver in the UK so we exploited his expertise in checking over the truck for us which was invaluable:

Here is a little reminder of where some of the children are currently living and the conditions that they are living in. I took this photo on a visit to Leonard's house this week:

Our boys all started school this week and are all ready making friends. We haven't had one complaint about school either and appear to be really enjoying it. John was able to get his school clothes from the school but the Samuel & Matthews cloths are being made for them:

And lastly, here is a very common site here in Burundi: