Throwing Bricks, Building Walls, Learning Prepositions

We are about to post all three videos that are backed up but we have to be sure we see them first, which we lovingly refer to as "World Premiers."  Whenever a team finishes a video, we make sure that everyone is awake/available and start yelling "World Premier!  World Premier!" until everyone gathers to watch.  We all bunch up as closely as we can to a laptop, send the sound through a small external speaker, and laugh out loud as the video plays.  Once we've seen it, you are allowed to see it out there in the wider world.  We hope you get as big a kick out of them as we do.

We woke up to the sounds of a bird that lives right outside our camp and sings a tune that reminds us of part of the Austin Powers theme (Soul Bossa Nova). We had porridge and omelets for breakfast and then hit the worksite to lift and load more materials.  Because the contractors that we have hired are now laying bricks, we are only making light contributions to that very important job. Maddie jumped right in and got a masonry tutorial, so she got to put up some of the actual structure of the kitchen.  Ali joined in eventually, as did Aidan.  The rest of us were moving piles of brick, sand, and blocks to get them all positioned to be most convenient for the professionals.

We've gotten pretty comfortable with all of these materials at this point, so that we have a good feel for exactly how to mix mortar (as opposed to concrete for the foundation) from roughly the same materials.  The kitchen crew was a little slow to arrive due to dish duty so our bucket lines were a little shorter than they had been yesterday.  We started moving bricks anyway and found that it wasn't too hard to cover the gaps by gently throwing the bricks from person to person.  We moved quite a load that way and got a big kick out of the fact that this is a job that actually figures into a college class for which we are all registered.  Wow.

Speaking of classes, a few of us got invited into the English class for Form 7, which appears to be a class of roughly 7-year-old students.  They are learning about prepositions at the moment, so they asked us to join in and help.  They specifically wanted Olivia, as they know she aspires to be a teacher, and they wanted Anthony, because he is an English major.  Camille and Aidan joined in too (she's a COMM major and he's a Politics major).  Alex, Maddie, and Nate went in and out to film and some of the other SMC folks hung around outside the open window to observe.

The English teacher wanted to convey the terms "in," "on," "under," "in front of," and "behind."  She had a chair, a table, a cup, a spoon, a pen, and a box, and kept putting them in different combinations and asking, "Where is the ____?" The students would answer one by one, in entire rows, as tables, or all together.  They sang songs to us in English (including "If You're Happy and You Know It," which took us awhile to recognize).  The teacher was very excited to teach her lesson and was even more excited to do it with us there.  She even gave us a quiz, which we are happy to say we all aced.  We are invited to return tomorrow, with Olivia and Anthony as the main teachers for the period.  We'll be ready.

Lunch brought another cloudburst, which slowed down our return to the worksite.  A few of us squeezed in another quick nap in our cloud-cooled tents but we finally decided to head on down in the rain, knowing that the workers would be there making progress.  The rain stopped before we got down to the school, so we moved another huge pile of concrete blocks (much too heavy to throw; don't worry!).  Our full bucket line was back so we established some great practices to help the line move as quickly and safely as possible.  All of our methods leave us covered with concrete dust, which we don't mind, especially because we call ourselves "DIRT."

The kitchen walls are almost complete now, so we get to learn tomorrow how they cap off the brick and support the roof.  Because we have made so much progress so fast, we expect to be able to complete the other two rooms of the new kitchen building too before we leave.  We sure hope so . . .

About half of us left the other half to continue delivering mortar to the masons while we hiked down to the river to get showers started.  The whole shower situation takes a very long time so every move that we can make to speed it up makes our lives flow a little more smoothly.  We actually have two showers here with hot water, but it takes so long to run 19 people through them that sometimes we just figure out another way.

We're waiting for dinner at the moment and moving photos onto the proper hard drive to get them up onto this site.  The three World Premiers are coming up any minute now, so please look back through the last few days to see if new pics or videos have emerged.  Thanks for your patience as we get our visuals organized.  We have pretty solid access to electricity and even to wifi, at least for the blog, but even with all of those things working in our favor, we have trouble keeping up.  We know you want to see what we are seeing, so we will keep at it . . .

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For our reflection tonight, we addressed two questions: 1) Because we can see that people are getting tired, how is each person doing? and 2) What does the ubiquity of English mean for us and for the rest of the world?

AND, we inducted TWO new members into the Order of the Purple Bike: Megan and Maddie.  Megan would have been yesterday's inductee but we postponed the ceremony until today.  Megan is fabulous every day, working and playing harder than just about everyone else.  She is always in good spirits and has not complained once that anyone can recall.  Yesterday in particular, she was actually covered in real dirt (actually more like cement dust) and was just caked with it all the way down her legs and all over her clothes.  There might be some context where that's a bad thing, but this is not that context.  As it turns out, she is probably the best quarterback we have for our non-existent football team, as she appears to have a canon for an arm.  It is our pleasure to honor her tonight for all of her great contributions to DIRT.

Tonight's inductee is Maddie.  She really soared today, as she picked up masonry like a pro.  She overcame language barriers and also helped other classmates pick up some brick-laying skills.  The pros kept turning to her to get assistance, showing their respect for her work (which, as we pointed out Monday, isn't always their first impulse when there are women on the worksite).  She is also incredibly strong in our bucket lines, and has even taken multiple opportunities to run (even after a hard day's work) because she told her crew coach that she would.  She has volunteered to use an outdoor shower that is cold to help ease the pressure on our shower situation.  For these and many other reasons, we are glad that Maddie is with us here in Tanzania!

 The sunset from our dinner table at camp.

 Selfies with Simon (aka god, beast of men, coolest cat around) at his house.  He described his house as “glamping” utilizing a self sufficient system of permaculture and sustainable gardening.

 Ali laying down the bricks (and the law) for the kitchen.

 A few of us were invited into a classroom to help teach English.   The children sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” among many other songs.

Madame is explaining prepositions to the class. 

 Josh and Max work in unison to create mortar for the growing kitchen.

  Jesse made some friends at the worksite.

The innovation of the foremen was remarkable as they created an easier system to sift sand for the mortar.

 The Dirties formed a bucket line to move the bricks to the foundation of the kitchen and the walls quickly began to grow.

As the Dirties finished sifting through the sand they found a shell under all the rubble.    

 How many DIRTies does it take to set up a camera? The things we do for a good angle.

While waiting to do our work, we were playing with the kids at the school.  One of them showed Scott this homemade top made from a soda cap.

 Today Anthony received a “very good” on his quiz during English class.  Good thing considering he is an English major.

 What strength! This is a woman carrying a log up the hill by balancing it on her head.

Simon, our Tanzanian contact, showed us his house, which he described as “glamping” (aka glamorous camping).   It included a full garden, composting toilet, and solar heated showers.