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Week Nine's Work is Complete

Last Saturday we made the payment for the truck and picked it up at a garage where it was getting a service. I then drove the truck about 15 miles to Gatumba where we are building. I needed to know what problems we were going to have and what repairs we would have to make. I would expect problems with a lorry of this age as the majority of vehicles on the road would fail our UK MOT tests.

My family were following behind and at one point I was stopped by the police. The only thing that they wanted to see was that all the documentation was in order. It was. However the police were located at both sides of the road and our son Matthew said that he was surprised that it wasn't the police on the other side of the road that stopped me. I had been driving so far over on the road to avoid killing any of the cyclists.

We know that the tyres and batteries need to be replaced and some brake pipes. We will also need to do some welding at some point. Most of these things will be sorted out this weekend. It is pretty scary driving a truck that has no hand brake and when you press the foot brake it travels all the way to the floor without doing anything. To brake I had to press the brake pedal a couple of times. On Monday we made a few basic repairs and the truck worked faithfully for the rest of the week.

This week's work was all about digging large holes and making blocks. Looking around the site there weren't so many workers to see as most of them could be found down the large drainage holes.

Work continues on up filling the new foundation walls:

Because we are employing more workmen to avoid the rainy season's flooding problems and because there is good progress on site I thought that I should recalculate the red earth blocks and how soon we will need them and it turned out that even though block manufacturing is going well they wouldn't be able to keep up with the brickies and we would run out quickly. To avoid this we have started using one of the other block presses and some one has donated a second large interlocking block press to compliment what we already have. This block press will arrive from Kenya in about a week. Spot the Sponge Bob t-shirt:

Whilst selecting workmen for the extra block press it became apparent that the young man pulling the lever down didn't have enough weight to compress the blocks. The older small woman even tries to assist. Someone suggested that we strap a bag of cement to his back. We eventually found a workman with a bit more beef:

Most of the young children are now at school and here is a picture of the school that the local children attend in Gatumba:

Whilst purchasing materials from a hardware store called "QUINCAILLERIE NOOR" at the market the shop owner asked if he could provide food for the children at our orphanage. Later we came to collect the very generous donation of 3 x 50kg bags of Rice and 3 x 50kg bags of beans. We were told that the money had been sent to Burundi by one of their relatives and had been provided specifically for the poor. Her name is "Salima Jaffer" and we would like to thank her for her very kind donation:

Here are some more images of our boys at school:

This light fitting on the house that we are living in was broken so to replace the whole unit I had to put the rafty wooden branch ladder onto two wooden seats. John and Matthew sat on the seats and Samuel secured the ladder. The minute I opened the light unit small wasps came straight out and stung me on the arm to the great amusement of the boys. We have no shortage of good ladders in the container but it still hasn't arrived yet:

Does this game look familiar? This picture was taken at Pastor Leonard's home.

Each day we travel to Gatumba and on the road you will see cyclists carrying almost anything. This is bread and the woman with the umbrella is protecting her self and the baby from the sun, not the rain. When it rains she will put the umbrella down:

In March, the day before we left to visit Burundi for our one week visit we had to have some passport size photos taken and then again a few days ago we had to do the same again here in Bujumbura. It was Val that commented on how I had changed in these few months so here are the passport photos side by side. I find it quite amazing as I am not working any harder here and I am eating just as much food here also. I like my food but we think that the weight loss is due to the natural detoxing and organic nature of our meals. The food is just as good but there are no preservatives and everything is prepared fresh. Val is also feeling the benefits but we haven't found her March photos yet to show the difference.

We were fully expecting to experience the worst when it came to our heath and there are a few negatives but I would say that there are so many positives. The boys are now enjoying themselves more and they haven't complained once about school even with them having to be at school by 7:30am.