3. the building

On the picture of the drawing you can see what we wanted.... it is a bit different! It turned out that the masons were not as good at reading drawings as we thought. We knew that the masons of the Naasa community could not read a drawing, so we asked masons from Sandema to put the drawing out on the ground. Some sizes are not correct, so the sinks in the classrooms are a different place. Furthermore, I had forgotten that we also must hang a black board, so we had to brick up a window in every room.

The bricklayers had also figured out that the outside door to the office was one too many, so Richard would sit in the dark. We later cut a window into that wall. But that wasn't the worst thing: The gentleman who measured the roof just skipped every cove. So there is a straight roof on a building.

Means that at the front the building just has to be straightened and at the back the roof is extended and so there are 2 parts of roof where nothing is underneath .... We have solved the front in the plan as follows: we make the cove smaller, but do not close it with a closed door. We go for a sliding door. No idea how expensive that is, but we will find out and possibly this door will come next year!

One day Richard and I arrived at the site and saw that the local gravel stones are neatly stacked and kept at the backside. That had to be, because otherwise the plasterers and the roofing people could not work. However, they forgot to put a tent on it! When it rains, which it did that night, the stones just turn into gravel again... that's what I call capital destruction! So, with the help of the roofers, we pulled a tent over it. I have to show you these pictures! 😉