Habitat for Humanity Build

Saturday morning, I awoke at 6:30 and immediately headed to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee, excited about the day that lay ahead. This was the day we would finally go do a build for Habitat-for-Humanity. Habitat is an international non-profit organization that helps build affordable housing for families. The houses are built by communities, volunteers, and hired work for more technical jobs such as plumbing and wiring. The money comes from donations as well as the people who pay for their houses. Habitat helps the family budget over a time period to pay for the house. I had never worked with the organization before, but I do care about affordable housing, so the opportunity seemed exciting. Plus, I love doing physical work in the outdoors if it's for some larger cause. It's strange because it's so difficult for me to get myself to exercise on a regular basis, but I don't mind spending a day schleppin' around mudbricks, or spending two months walking through forests, or spending a day hauling furniture up stairs. Actually, that last one I did mind a bit, but that's another story.

The van was set to leave at 7:00 AM, but of course, as usual, we ended up leaving late even though everyone was ready to go on time. We spent the first two hours of our ride getting out of Accra, and then the next two getting to the town of Kibi. I spent my ride reading Senator Barack Obama's memoirs Dreams from my Father, eating crackers, and drinking pineapple juice and soymilk. I also napped for a little while when it became clear that the estimated two hour journey wasn't going to end anytime soon. As we got closer to the town, I noticed the terrain becoming like that of the Volta Region, very green and hilly, alive with life. We got to Kibi, then drove a little bit outside of town to a little community. At the entrance to the community was a sign that said, "Habitat for Humanity."

I suspect that the whole community, perhaps 100 houses, was built by Habitat. The houses all looked very nice - plain mudbrick with the same rectangular shapes, but painted a wide variety of colors. Each house had a cute little yard with different plants and flowers. A simple dirt path went in different directions around the community. The whole place looked very planned and very clean; I could tell people took pride in their surroundings. The NYU staff and a woman who worked for Habitat led all 24 of us to a shaded area to sign liability forms, get gloves, and get lectured on drinking lots of fluids and not overworking ourselves.

There were three different stations set up for working. At one station, there were two wheelbarrows and three shovels. With these tools, the workers move dirt from one place to another. Simple enough. Then there was the brickmaking station. The brickmaker was a huge hunk of metal into which you put lots of earth and compress it. It hardens, you let it dry, and you have yourself a brick. I wanted to work with the brickmaker, but there was only one, so I didn't really get a chance, especially since most people weren't too psyched about the third job. This job was carrying bricks from the brickmaking area far into the community to another pile of bricks which I assume will be used for building in that spot.

If you're good at counting and you realize that it only take two, three at most, people to operate a brickmaker, then you know that there were jobs for four people and the dirt shoveling station (one for wheelbarrow), two or three at the brickmaking station, and then 17 or 18 people carrying bricks. Apparently there was a big mix up and they just hadn't planned for the amount of people that were coming. All day, there were rumors afly about getting more shovels and wheelbarrows, but I never saw them. So I did the only thing I could do. I carried bricks. I picked up a brick and followed a man down a dirt path into the village. He told us to make a pile where a building site was planned. And that was that. There were hundreds of made bricks, but they had to be carried a good three or four minute walk away. The bricks were pretty heavy, so many of the girls tried carrying the bricks on their heads, as the locals would do, but it just hurts your head instead of hurting your arms.

After we realized how much of a pain carrying the bricks individually was, we searched for other options. We found a little pull cart with flat tires. About ten little boys worked to move that pullcart back and forth. (I joked at the time that the little kids were doing the hardest job of all because there was no good path for the cart and the tires were crap. I treid to help them, but the kids were too intent on doing the jobs themselves). I wanted to use the wheelbarrows, but they were being used for shoveling. People stopped working very soon. We had arrived at the hottest time of the day after a long van ride and people weren't entertained by the idea of carrying bricks that far. I kept on carrying, and soon some of us organized an assembly line to get the bricks to the building site. But not long after we started the assembly line, they told us it was lunchtime, so we stopped working.

For lunch, we had rice, stew, chicken, vegetables, and plantains, a very typical and very tasty lunch. We also brought food for many people in the community. They seemed to appreciate it. After lunch, a bunch of people left, which really surprised me. I thought people wanted to come to work for more than an hour. I guess I expected the whole experience to be more productive. Even I was working, but I just couldn't get much done because there was no quick and effective way to get the bricks from one place to another. After lunch, I used the wheelbarrow, which did work well. However, after four loads of four bricks, I was kind of tired, and no one else seemed to keen on the idea. We started the assembly line again and moved many bricks, but all said and done, we probably only got about 120 or so bricks to the site. I guess it's better than none.

After I was done working, I sat down and heard a few people were going to the river. This sounded exciting. I was dirty and sweaty, ready for a nice dip in some water. Well, once we had mobilized everyone, we went to the river which really turned out to just be a little stream. We still played in the stream, of course. The kids from the village followed us and watched us as we sat around in a semi-deep part, our shoulders just coming above the water, and played with the most amazing mud I've ever felt. I thought it was funny that we were playing the stream while the little kids just watched us. I've been thinking about it, and I guess kids just stare. I think parents in the US just tell their kids not to stare at people, and here, they definitely don't because almost every little kid that sees me ends up staring at me or yelling out at me and smiling or holding out his or her hand for me to take it or asking for money or doing any other number of things. I don't mind it; I suppose it's only natural to see something or someone different for the first time and try to examine it as closely as possible.

After getting out of the water, day was nearing its end. I sat around and ate some cashews I had bought at a gas station on the way to the town, staring up and admiring the blanket of clouds that completely covered half of the sky as the sun set behind them. We went into town which wasn't really a whole lot. We went to a place called Decent Spot (dealers in drinkable goods) and played cards until dinner. We had dinner back at the village, banku with chicken soup and vegetables, all of us sitting around a large bonfire. After dinner, I went home. Most people stayed overnight in the town, but I didn't want to get back late the next day because I had to help edit the five-minute film I'm working on with Tania and Hannah. The ride back only took two hours, and I think it was probably the greatest van ride of my life. I had a whole seat to myself (there were only three of us), and I just laid down looking out the window at the full moon, spacing out to the gentle hum of the night.