Building shit.

This last Wednesday we didn’t have classes and instead went to a school in an Accra suburb to help construct a library. This has been an ongoing project by the Aya Centre where they take whichever groups come through from the US and have them work on the library, which is getting built slowly but surely.

It was an interesting experience to build completely by hand. We spent our time mixing cement and then carrying the cement up to a worker who poured it into the frame that had been built. The building was about halfway complete and we were putting the final level of cement on above the windows, leaving just the roof to be done after.

Making the cement involved shoveling dirt into a large basin, mixing it with bags of cement, shoveling rocks on top, and then carrying water from a rainwater tank and pouring it on. After this we had to mix the cement with shovels. I couldn’t believe how inefficient this was, and at first I was thinking about how much a portable cement mixer would speed up the process, but I realized that just a wheelbarrow would have doubled the work we were able to do.

The main job that I worked on was standing on a rickety board supported by cement blocks and lifting very heavy metal bowls of cement up to the man who was pouring it. I got a lot of cement dripped on me, and nearly got hit in the head by the large rocks in the cement mix when it spilled over the frame. We didn’t really accomplish that much, which was discouraging, but at the same time it felt more gratifying than anything I’d done at my internship this whole term.

Speaking of my internship, I spoke to my program about how I hadn’t done anything there in a long time, and that what I had done was for my boss personally, not for the internship. So, I may end up with a different internship for the last month, unless AFAWI comes up with something for me. I really wouldn’t mind actually doing something, even if it’s just teaching math or English for a while. I’d even be happy doing construction compared to the sitting-around I do now.