A typical day ...

This is a quickie from the Cyber Caff !

I thought I'd relate a typical day of volunteers from England working on a building site on the Equator !


Up at 6 a.m. ... the muzzein from the nearby mosque called the faithful to prayer at 5 ... and acts as our alarm clock.   First up makes tea ... black, as we cant get milk ... and puts on the porridge to cook.  This we eat with sugar and chopped fruit ... today it was pineapple.

Showers, anti-malarials, boil lots more water to cool while we are out, and then down the stairs of the apartment block by 8 to greet Morris, our tuk-tuk driver, who is licensed to carry three passengers ... but 'always room for one more' in Kenya.   Morris drives us to the site; about a mile and a half ... we could walk, but its already getting hot, so we ride ... 100 K. shillings a day for the tuk-tuk ... about 85p.

The local workmen are already on site; they greet us individually with a three way African hand-shake.  They are Stephen, in charge, Meshak and George, the plasterers, and Eric (or Bom as he is known) who is the dogsbody. 

First job is always seiving sand, which comes from the river, so always has stones in it.  When we have done a huge heap, Dan and Nigel (my companions) start to mix the plaster mix with Eric ... hard work, shovelling and mixing the sand and cement dry, and then heavy work when water is added.  Gill and I usually are given the job of spraying the walls and ceilings already plastered, to keep them damp, so they dry out slowly.   We have to do this with a hose which we bought for the site ... previously we did it by throwing water with a cup from a bucket !   Of course, spraying above your head has the inevitable result of soaking us to the skin ... quite pleasant in this heat ... but when we have finished, its back to more seiving, and the dust and grit sticks to us, and it isn't long before our hair is standing up stiff and sticky with all the dust.   Filling my hat with water and then plonking it on my head is very pleasant !

We have a water stop at about 10 ... we need it !   Half a litre of water and a banana keeps us going for another couple of hours.  We take it in turns to seive the sand, or carry it in the to seive from the heaps outside.  By noon, when we stop again, we are filthy, aching, stinking !  We just have to have a break for lunch ... peanut butter sandwiches on dry bread, and more water, with fruit.   A banana selling lady comes round, and we buy 10 for 40 sh. ... about 30p.   She usually throws in one or two free ones.

The African workmen don't stop at all ... they think we are wimps I suspect !   After lunch, its more of the same; wall wetting, and sometimes making 'porridge' .. a whiter plaster for the top layer of plaster on the walls ... this involves mixing water, lime and cement powder in a wheelbarrow until Bom says its thick enough.   Health and safety on the site is non existant ... planks and poles everywhere with an array of nails sticking out of them; loose head on the one hammer; lumps and bumps everywhere to trip us up; and the tools ... there are 2 wheelbarrows, two shovels, one jembe, three coriah's (metal bowls used for carrying cement, sand, whatever) and an assortment of trowels.  We bought a hose to make filling the barrel of water easier.  Otherwise the one bucket had to do the job.   Nails when needed are prised out of old scaffold planks and banged straight.

After lunch, Gill and I often get an opportunity to sit with the women living next to the site, and we observe their lives with interest.   We bounce babies, and play with the toddlers and the older children when they get home from school.

Work (for us) stops at 3 when Morris comes to pick us up; I wrote a description of our journey the other day.  We strip off after Lilian (the maid !) greets us, and have blissful cold showers, and then some more black tea. 

An hour at the Cyber Caff on some days, (cold drinks available !) then back for supper.  We read for a short time, and are often in bed by 8.30, and certainly by nine !  My bed was full of ants last night, so I had to strip off the net and the sheet, and clear them out before I could get in !   By the time we go to bed, the breeze has stilled, and its hot and humid; we lie there gently sweating.  I listen to my iPod.   But by morning, its much cooler, and I have got under the sheet ... until woken by the muzzein again !