Building a Community Center in Ghana

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.
3. We then take three bags of cement, crack them open at the base of the bag, and try not to inhale as the gray powder is dumped on the piles of sand. It is important to keep the bags as intact as possible so we can fold them into paper hats that help relieve the pain of carrying the head pans.
4. We mix the sand and cement by carefully shoveling the sand over the cement, then piling the mix into one big heap. After you have it in a heap, you spread it out into a big circle and repeat another one or two more times.
5. You spread the sand and cement mix into a big circle with the rim serving as a little wall.
6. Shovel “gravel,” or stones the size of your fist, into head pans and wheelbarrow. Shovel and carry, shovel and carry…it seems like it takes forever to get enough rocks. The gravel is distributed into the middle of the circle, making the sand, cement, and gravel mix look like a giant gray pizza.
7. Being very careful not to spill the water that has been carried from at least a half mile away by women and girls and distributed into a giant water tank, carry the brownish water in head pans and dump it onto the mix (still shaped like a pizza).
8. MIX. That’s right, using shovels and your lower backs, mix the sand, cement, gravel, and water, starting at one side of the circle. As you mix, little by little, the concrete is shoveled into waiting head pans and wheelbarrows.

Yes, those eight little steps all day until we had a nice slab of concrete ready for us to start building walls in the morning!