Building a Community Center in Ghana

Our building is made up entirely of grey blocks. These blocks weight about 40 pounds each and are the size of an elongated, narrow shoebox. Rather than having holes in them, like American cinder blocks, they are solid like a brick.

You make a block by mixing (again ALL BY HAND!) two loads of grey sand, one load of brown sand, a bag of cement and water.

Its hard to imagine that people who are just trying to make the world a better place can be criticized, especially by people who are also serving to create a better global community. Nonetheless, it happens in Ghana just like it happens all over the world, in communities grateful for the service being provided.

So why should I bring this up? Well volunteer elitism even happens in the tiny village of Abrafo.

After our extend wait yesterday at the worksite, we couldn’t wait to hear what had taken J so long in Cape Coast.

Apparently he hadn’t had any problems find the supplies, but finding the columns was a different story. As he explained it he had spent the afternoon wandering around what could only be described as a post apocalyptic looking yard filled with different kinds of cars in various states of disassembly and scrap metal. After finding the particular long pieces of U shaped metal he soon got lost in translating how he wanted the pieces assembled.

Not everything we do at the worksite involves shoveling gravel, sand and dirt (though it often seems that way), we also have a lot of fun!

Well, after yesterday of getting rained out of working only after we had finished getting the site all level and ready for the slab of concrete that will serve as the floor, today we actually poured the slab, so we spent the whole day mixing and carrying the heavy stuff around.

So, how exactly do we make concrete, you might ask? Let me tell you!

1. We had to build a mixing pad, which we did the first day by pouring a mix on a relatively flat circle of dirt.
2. We shovel multiple (3) wheelbarrows full of grey sand (which is very fine) and three loads of brown, coarser sand.

In addition to light shopping/heavy traffic and whirling blades of death, I also feel I should mention another little funny aspect of life here in Ghana:

3. Reading the signs

As any outsider does, it is hard not to find the way other people phrase things very funny. It is no different for me here in Ghana. First, reflecting their deeply religious mentality, Ghanaian merchants have taken to naming their businesses some pretty interesting things. For example,

- Jesus Loves Fashion Enterprise
- We are the Pencil in the Hand of the Creator Fashion Salon

Today started out with carrying the gray cement blocks from where they were piled behind the school and lining them up along the trenches. While at first we carried them at a brisk walk with our arms wrapped around the crumbly blocks, it was soon blatantly clear there had to be an easier way of doing it. The great part of having 19 people was that it made for one very efficient relay line. With only very few mishaps (the blocks would sometimes break into pieces as they were passed…I know, very sturdy, right? Perfect for a building!), we soon had the whole site surrounded by blocks.

Another great day at the work site!

We came back this morning and found our beautifully dug foundation trenches perfectly intact. While I don’t think we were planning on them going anywhere or the roaming goats/chickens would fill them in, it is the rainy season, and a night of rain certainly could have turned our trenches into a watery mud pit (great for irrigating the banana/plantain/orange fields, not so great for a building!).

Well, today was a chance for me to have a whole definition of being on “African soil.” We were not just on it, we were (at times) knee deep in the red dirt, covered in it head to toe.

I may not have better described what exactly it is that we will building. We have been asked to design and build an addition to the local school which will eventually be used for computers. Until the get the computers the room will probably be used as a classroom. There is also a small office incorporated into the design...

With the anticipation of beginning work tomorrow, the design (final) has started to take serious form. The students and J have continued with evening meetings in the hotel rooms to finalize everything.