Tuesday July 20, 2010 And the walls go higher

The exterior walls continue to rise. Scaffolding is limited. We make do with 55 gallon barrels and planks. The Kenyan masons improvised additional scaffolding using extra concrete well rings. These have no reinforcing so have little strength when they are turned on their side, but it is easier to move them on their side since they can be rolled. So they used the rings turned on their side. They made it through the morning before one broke. Fortunately no one got hurt.

We continue to make good progress. The exterior walls should all be completed to the top of the windows by tomorrow. The interior walls are going up quickly.

Part of the crew spent the day hauling dirt and leveling the floor in building 2. They set forms and got ready to do the first pour of the concrete floors tomorrow. We want to do the floors before we build the walls on the lower end of this building because there is so much fill. The wire mesh and reinforcing bars in the floor slab will do a lot to strengthen the building.

All of the work is being done by hand with no power tools. We have a battery powered drill and saw, but have been unable to recharge the batteries. We hope to get a generator on the site tomorrow so we can drill the building columns and tie them into the ring beam at the top of the windows. Other tools are limited too, but we continue figure out a way to get the job done. That is part of what continues to make the job interesting.