We have been learning a lot of practical things that will help us when we are on the field such as first aid, CPR, organic gardening and last week we learnt how to manually mix cement and frame a house; and then we did it! Each team was given 1 bag of cement, 30 2x4s and a sheet of ply wood and we had to build a structually sound house frame that was 4' x 8' x 7'6". We were told that we wouldn't have enough wood to make it properly with braces every 18" so we had to be creative; so one of the ways our team tried to save wood was by using a tire for a window and then we planted a little mock garden in the tire too. It turned our great and our team was pleasantly surprised that our house was able to survive a strong storm we had over the weekend, whilst another teams house was not so fortunate.

 

Below is the process of making our house:

 

Laying our base, getting ready to pour cement for floor

 

time to mix cement

 

our freshly poured cement floor

 

starting to frame the walls

 

what happens when an all girls team uses a hammer and nails ;) (but for our defense the nails were rusty and not the strongest)

 

our tire window

 

putting it together

 

phew it's done!

 

Party at Uganda 1's house

 

adding a roof for finishing touches

 

looking out our wonderful window