Blog post brought to you by Xilal
7/22/16
Muraho friends and family,
The past few days have been quite exciting in many
ways. As usual on Wednesday we woke up
early in the morning, welcomed by the bright red sun that accompanies the 6am
sky. After our hearty breakfast we went
off to work. As we reached the site we
could hear the voices of various kids saying, “good morning” and mispronouncing
our names.
The workers there continued to mix the concrete, while the
Muzungus finished off the second truss.
This truss was a lot harder to build than the first one. We could not get the sawing quite right,
because the blade of the saw would always bend.
Hassan, the “Hammer Man,” as Travis called him referring to the Billy
Joel song, continued to amaze us with his ability to hammer in the African
nails, which we continued to bend with each hit. We finished a little earlier than the workers
that were mixing concrete, so I took the opportunity to play with the little
ones that watched us build. One of them
had a soccer ball, which we all quickly began to juggle with our feet. Ellis later joined in. As we were playing, the kids would stop the
game and point at something. We would
tell them the word in English and they would tell it to us in Kinyarwanda. The game would quickly continue. After the kiddos were tired of playing
soccer, we all decided to play Maboco (volleyball). The game ended as soon as the final batch of
concrete for the last foundation was poured and we were all ready to go back to
the hotel.
We returned back to the hotel, where one of the workers of
the hotel approached me and we began to talk.
He and I talked about the differences and similarities between Rwanda
and the United States. We also talked a
bit about our personal lives. He took me
around the hotel and took me to a balcony that overlooked part of Musanze. We people-watched together and talked about
soccer and our futures.
The next day, we finished off the final truss, which went a
lot smoother than the last two. This was
due to the fact that we had everybody’s help.
The masons had also arrived, ready to start the columns. Curtis and Michael helped the masons, while
Ellis and I helped build the last truss.
Travis supervised. The reason this truss worked so well was because
Japhet had done both the cutting and the nailing. He was a master in both. The truss was quickly finished, so Ellis and
I joined the rest of the group to help the masons. We finished all the cages as we quickly
realized that the next days would be quite uneventful, seeing as we had
finished the bulk of the work. We walked
to Munini, where we waited for Cristiano Ronardo (our bus). All of the sudden Wally (our translator from
the beginning of the trip), appeared from a moto (a motorcycle taxi), where he
immediately greeted us with a wide smile on his face. We all returned to our hotel and talked with
him about our project and the safari that we are going to take on Sunday over
twelve Chapati.
Today, as we had expected, there was close to no work to
do. We grabbed some wood, tested it,
then walked to Nyrotosho to check on the foundations. That was the extent of our work for today.
Murabeho for now,
Xilal
And as always, here are some recent pictures!
The Cafe at the hotel where we spend a few dinners and most snack times. They're learning about our absurd chupati and very early breakfast habits
A panoramic view of the work site - unsurprisingly, Travis is supervising.
Three completed trusses!
Hassan and Michael playing human tug-of-war with some of the local kids
The view of "The Land of a Thousand Hills" from our worksite
Beach day! Curtis on leftover sand at the worksite
The skilled masons begin the first of six columns
Xilal lending a hand as Curtis smooths out some concrete
Michael and a sleepy Travis after a successful gorilla expedition
A final picture of the worksite with two of three tank foundations set (All three are completed now!)
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