Rebar and Sand

Banner the Bauza girls made to greet us into the W&W House

Nurse Nancy working on Don

Moving sand from the high spots to the low

Carlos and Juan surveying the surveying equipment

Building rebar frames for the ring beam

Overnight the rains came. It was loud on our metal roofs. One good thing about the sandy soil is its absorbency. As soon as the rain ended the ground soaked it up. So we went out to work about 8 as planned. We bent and tied more rebar in the morning. We built more sections of the ring beam reinforcement. After a big lunch we went back and used up the last of the rebar we had available. So most of the crew went to the building site and started leveling the dirt. I went with Carlos to buy more rebar to finish the ring beam frames. I knew we would not likely go to a Home Depot or Lowes but I was not expecting to buy rebar at a road side stand. We drove in heavy traffic about 3 kilometers up the main road by campus to the “construction district”. Each vender sold a different item. We bought some rebar from one vender, then we moved up the road a bit to buy a different kind of  rebar from a different vender. Then we went to a third shop for small sledge hammers and a fourth for a few long 2x4s. Our round trip of about 6 kilometers for three items took over an hour.

In the afternoon Carlos hired more seminary students to help move dirt, so our crew grew steadily over the last few hours of the work day as students joined in on the shoveling, wheel barrowing and raking. About 5 PM the Seminary Director came out to make the final decision on the exact location of the building. Once she gave the orders we were able to use the laser level to survey the lot and get a good handle on how much more dirt has to be moved from high spots to low spots. Hopefully tomorrow, we can finish fabricating the rebar frames and with the students’ help hopefully we will get the rest of the grading done so we can start digging the 14 holes for the columns.

Connie, Vivian and Eva fed us way to well once again today. As we wrapped up supper this evening, David Restrick came in to present Vivian with the prodigal carry on bag she last saw in DC. The bag many of us assumed would remain lost somewhere in Ethiopia forever, made it to the Maputo airport today and back into Vivian’s hand tonight. God has watched over us. Besides basic aches, minor scratches, and a few mosquito bites, everyone is safe and healthy and enjoying working with Carlos Bauza’s family and the seminary students.