House Building Part 4: Construction

A few more snapshots of the construction process...

View from the front yard before building began.

Digging for the foundation.

Large stones were placed in the trenches and held together with concrete.

The ground was pressed down with these hand compacters shown above.

More stones for the foundation.

All of the rebar was twisted by hand.

Plastic sheets were placed over the stones to prevent moisture from coming up in the foundation.

Concrete foundation being laid.

After almost 2 months of foundation work, it was really exciting to see the cornerstone being laid.

Once brick laying began, the house really started to take shape.

Katelyn checking things out.

Hailey in the front yard while the roof is going up.

Isaac enjoying the front porch.

The roof is covered with iron sheets.

The house as it looks now with fresh plaster on the walls. We are waiting for electrical wiring, plumbing, painting, and finishing work on the inside. We should be moving in about 4-6 weeks. Thank you to everyone who had a hand in this project! We have a guest bedroom waiting for you if you would like to come for a visit!

We have a remaining financial need so that we can purchase solar equipment to have a back-up power supply. Grid electricity is very unreliable and we need to have a way to keep food cold. We also hope to fence in the back yard to allow our family to have a little private space to spend quality time. If you would be willing to help with these financial needs, please click HERE.

House Building Part 3: Brick Making

Our home is being built with compressed earth bricks, all of which were made on site from the dirt in our yard. It was really interesting to watch how these bricks were made and to see something that came right from our yard being used to construct our home. The first step in the process was to dig large holes in the ground to locate soil with the right composition for bricks. As we dug deeper and deeper, we eventually got to a reddish layer of dirt (marrum) that is ideal for brick making.

Marrum

After locating the right type of dirt, it was passed through a sifter to break down the large chunks into fine particles.

Freshly sifted marrum

The marrum was then mixed with a small amount of concrete to add strength to the bricks.

The mixture of marrum and concrete was fed into a compressor to make the finished product. It was really impressive to watch these guys hand press all of the bricks that were needed for our home - about 8,000 in total!

Freshly made bricks were sun dried for several days and then stored underneath a building to protect them from rain.

Hand made bricks from our backyard. Pretty cool!

House Building Part 2: Water Access

It is easy to take for granted having reliable water access in America. Not so in Uganda! One of the big obstacles we faced in building our home was getting water to the construction site. World Harvest Mission first brought running water to Nyahuka 20 years ago. Our team's water engineer oversaw a project that channeled water from a local waterfall to large storage tanks on the mission property. The water was then distributed to public water taps that were built in many locations in the community, providing the first clean water access for Nyahuka. Prior to this, drinking water came exclusively from the Nyahuka River, which is also used for bathing and washing.

Nyahuka falls, which brings water to our community via the Nyahuka river

Our initial plan was to bring water to the construction site by connecting to underground pipes from our neighbor's yard. 

We dug a trench about 50 meters to connect to existing pipes.

We bought two 1000L water tanks to store the water for brick making and concrete work. Here our local plumber is building temporary stands for the water tanks.

We hit a snag when we discovered that the water pressure was not high enough to fill our tanks. This was partly due to construction beginning in the dry season when there was not much rainfall. The other factor was that our water system is now 20 years old and is overly stretched by the current population.

With no water at the construction site when our building team was working on the foundation, we were forced to carry water uphill from the river in the valley behind our home for several days. One morning I was up at 6am carrying water in the dark up the hill from the river. After just a few trips, I was exhausted. I gained a deep respect for the women and children that I see carrying water on their backs everyday to take home for cooking and washing. When the construction team told us they would need 2000L of water per day for several weeks to pour a concrete foundation, we quickly realized that carrying water in jerry cans was not going to work as a long term solution.

After consulting with our missionary team's water engineers, we decided to buy a generator pump that would allow us to pump water directly from the river into our water tanks. We had to find the shortest distance from the river to our construction site and then negotiate with the local land owners to get permission to place a pump and pipes on their land.

After measuring the distance from the river to our water tanks, we bought 300 meters of plastic pipe in Fort Portal (2 hours away) and then bought a water pump in Kampala (8 hours away).

We were thankful to have a large roof rack on our car so we could transport the hose pipe.

When the water pump finally arrived we carried it down to the river to see if it would work. It was pure joy when we turned the pump on and filled our 2000L tanks in about 5 mins! It had previously taken all day (literally!) to carry this much water by hand....

House Building Part 1: Land Clearing

As our housing project is nearing completion, we wanted to add some posts to show how the house was made. Thank you so much to everyone who had a hand in this project - from design, to financial gifts, to encouragement, and prayer support. We could not have done this without you and are so thankful for your support. We are so looking forward to the completion of this home (hopefully by late August) so that we can finally transition in to a permanent location and turn our full attention towards ministry. Building this house has consumed a significant portion of our time and energy over the past nine months, but we felt it was an important step to getting our family settled. Thank you for partnering with us in this work! Here's a glimpse of how the house was made....

The land we are building on had previously been a cocoa shamba (farm) and was covered with cocoa and banana trees. Eli is standing under a banana tree in a small clearing. Much of the rest of the land was so densely planted that you could only see a few feet in any direction.

Our first task was to clear the land to get it ready for building. We hired a crew of local friends to help with this process. We had to cut every tree and pull up the roots by hand with axes, pangas, and hoes. It was quite an ordeal that took about three solid weeks of work.

These guys were amazing, doing all the work by hand and with no shoes.

One of the most gratifying parts of our building project has been providing jobs for many people in the community. Unemployment here ranges from 50-90%, depending on the time of year. More work is available during the peak cocoa harvesting season, but even then only about half of people have regular jobs. It has been a joy to see this housing project provide regular work for many people in our community over the past nine months. We have seen many of our workers using the money to provide food, clothing, school fees, healthcare, and housing upgrades for their families.

Eli getting in on the action by cutting banana trees.

Isaac "helping" pick up leaves.

Eli and his buddies enjoying a place to play on the freshly cleared land.

After clearing all the trees and roots by hand, we were able to bring in a tractor to level the ground in preparation for building....