Site

Site is a 15 minute walk from base along the main road (more like 20 mins back home at the end of the day though – the road is flat, it’s just that after all day on site we move a lot slower than first thing in the morning!). It’s a school that does primary education to grade 8. There is a two storey building with classrooms in it (the orange/apricot coloured building in the pictures) that is still in use. There are some one storey classrooms in buildings that are not fit for purpose so some of them will be demolished. One has already been demolished. One is still in use (because there just isn’t enough space in the big building). This is the white building on the left. And one is being used by us as a tool shed / cement store, the white building on the right. There is a toilet block (the yellow building). And we’re building a new toilet block and a single storey building with three classrooms (that’s the main piece of work we’re doing at the moment). The building will use CSEB (compressed stabilised earth bricks) which are better than normal bricks because they don’t have to be fired – so they are more environmentally friendly.

As far as site is concerned, you can see the gate in the photo near the vehicle. To the left of the gate is a covered area which is both site office and also our lunch space. The trenches are not really visible in this photo but you can see some H shaped contraptions towards the back of the site (and some bamboo bridges). The H shapes are the bater boards on which we have string lines that give us a horizontal plane that we can use as a reference for the levels of the footings, etc. There are also some string lines that show us where the edges of the trenches should be. There is a red-brown cement mixer in the middle of the site that you can see the top of. The corrugated iron roofed structure at the front edge of the site is the tool shed where we keep shovels etc. Part of that structure is the roof for the carpentry station. The red tarp roof is the roof of the cupcake station (see below for details of what this is – spoiler: no baking involved). The blue roofed structure is the rebar station. You can see the spoil pile at the back of the site. The next red roof is the soil sieving station. The next metal roof on the front of the site is the welding station, which is currently being used for fabricating the rebar structures. The small metal roof on the right is the generator store (though the site generator isn’t on site yet – but we do need it because we get regular power cuts). The white building with the green tanks on top is the other toilet block that we use as our toilet on site. There is also a dishwashing and handwashing station behind that which isn’t visible in this photo.

We’re hoping to be finished and to hand the building over to the community at the end of April.

At this stage in construction, we are working on the footings for the CSEB classroom building. An excavator was in before the volunteers started to dig the trenches for the footings for the walls (four outside walls and the two internal walls that divide the space into the three classrooms). We’ve had some more manual excavation work to do to make sure the trenches are wide enough and deep enough. We then have to put some gravel in to the correct level. We’ve had some trench walls that weren’t as stable as we hoped they’d be, so we started by making sure they were angled at the top away from the trench so that you don’t have the full weight of the earth pushing straight down. But for various reasons, that wasn’t always enough, so we’ve also covered the trench walls in a cement and water slurry. As it cures and hardens we’re hoping that it’ll stop further dirt from sliding down into the trenches. At some point we’ll be putting in the rebar to then pour the concrete, then backfilling around the concrete, but we’re not there yet.

We’re also doing site set up – making the space efficient and giving us all the areas that we need (with shading as appropriate because the sun gets quite hot). So in the photos you’ll see some of the stations we have around the site.

We’ve talked about manual excavation in the trenches, that’s one part of the work we’re doing. We’re also cutting and bending rebar (the metal rods that will go inside the concrete columns and concrete beams). The rebar comes in long strips of about 12 meters and in two diameters (12mm and 8mm). So we need to use a drop saw to cut the rebar to the right length. We need different lengths for different purposes. We then need to bend right angles into it in the right places. We have a rebar station which has a saw horse sort of contraption on it with some nails hammered in. You put the rebar in the right place between the nails, grab a big metal tool (not sure of the name of it) which is basically a long heavy bar with a hook and two tines at then of it. You hook those around the rebar and then pull to bend it. It is an art! We then need to measure the shapes we’re making to ensure we have the bends in the right places and each finished stirrup is the right size. Some are squares, some are L shapes, some are moustaches (a long bar with a hairpin curve on each side).

Once the rebar has been cut and bent into position, the various pieces have to be tied together to create the mesh or column structure that we need. So we use tie wire to do that. The spacing has to be pretty accurate so there is a lot of measuring and remeasuring.

We’ve also started on creating the wooden formwork for the concrete pour. These are the pieces of reinforced plywood that will go into the trench / column to provide the form that the concrete will take when poured. This also has to be really accurate. I haven’t done any formwork yet, but I suspect it’ll happen at some point. There is a carpentry station (with a table and a power socket in case any corded saws are needed there).

So eventually we’ll get the formwork for the sides, we’ll put the rebar shapes in the middle. We’ll put some spacers in (these are little discs of concrete that tie onto the rebar so that it is in the middle of the final concrete structure and not on the edges). These spacers are called cupcakes here (in Mexico they call them pollos (chickens)). Hence the cupcake station.

The dirt that has come out of the trenches is in a big pile and some of it we’ll use to backfill around the concrete footings once they are in. But, before we can use it we need to sift it. So we have a soil sifting station (say that three times quickly!) where there is a metal mesh on a stand on an angle and you shovel the dirt and stones etc against the mesh, all the big stones then roll down and the soil goes through. The stones go onto the stone pile (I think they might be used for the external wall and some of the landscaping). The soil is then ready for when we need it later.

Each morning in the site meeting (and after our stretching circle – we jog around in a circle to warm up then one person leads us in a few stretches) the site team explain the tasks for the day and how many volunteers are needed for each task. We then sign up for the task we want (unless it has already been filled). Each day someone different gets to go first in the sign up. So we get to work on a variety of tasks and with a variety of people and with different local workers too.

The site team include our Project Manager (who is in charge of the all the site work); the Construction Site Coordinator (who makes sure everything happens on site that needs to); the Construction Site Supervisor (who supports the CSC); the logistics coordinator (who makes sure we have all the stuff on site that we need when we need it). From the volunteers we have a Site Manager (who does tool inventory, site tours, tool training) and a Team Leader, though I think we may end up with more of them as we get more volunteers in (who leads the volunteers and makes sure they all know what they’re doing and liaises with the site staff).

And that is site and the work we’re up to at the moment.

We have a lot of work to do and there are lots of us to do it. And it really is a joy to be part of.