Building our boundary wall. Two years ago we built a wooden boundary fence at the back of the property. We had some problems with intruders and at the time it was all we could afford to do. However it has not proved to be as secure as we would have hoped and recently we had an offer of support to pay for a wall. We had built the retaining wall thanks to the generosity of my close neighbours in Cumbria during the previous year making a good foundation. I hope you will find this account of our building work interesting. All work here is manual, hauling sand, cement, stones for building mixing cement etc. All of Rwanda is hilly; the tons of materials are left on the road outside our property and then hauled, bit by bit by women and men working 8 hours a day. Building blocks are made on site, using a frame and they are left to dry in the sun for three days. The wall was built in 10 to 15 metre sections each day. In places it is very high so a ladder was made on site. The cement is carried up to the workers in half gerry cans – whatever would Africa do without these?
Transcript
Building our boundary wall.
Two years ago we built a wooden boundary fence at the back of the property. We had some problems
with intruders and at the time it was all we could afford to do. However it has not proved to be as
secure as we would have hoped and recently we had an offer of support to pay for a wall. We had built
the retaining wall thanks to the generosity of my close neighbours in Cumbria during the previous year
making a good foundation. I hope you will find this account of our building work interesting.
All work here is manual, hauling sand, cement, stones for building mixing cement etc. All of Rwanda is
hilly; the tons of materials are left on the road outside our property and then hauled, bit by bit by
women and men working 8 hours a day.
Building blocks are made on site, using a frame and they are left to dry in the sun for three days.
The wall was built in 10 to 15 metre sections each day. In places it is very high so a ladder was made on
site. The cement is carried up to the workers in half gerry cans – whatever would Africa do without
these?
And now we are left with a lot of wood from the fence – people who know me well will smile when I say
that we are re-cycling most of it. Some Rwandans have been very amused by this idea and the wood
would most probably have been burnt – or at least made into other fences.
Enter Claude, our very own carpenter. Rwandans have lovely smiles but perhaps his smile is one of the
broadest I have seen. Nothing troubles him and he just gets on with the job. He travels each day about
an hour from home on his bicycle and when he takes wood to the wood-yard for planing or gluing he
takes it on his bike. The wood is actually very dense and heavy, hard to work with, but Claude just gets
on with it. He began by making a work-bench; he dug holes in the ground and constructed it in the back
yard.
He then prepared the nails which he had taken out of the fence.
We had previously broken up the majority of the first desks we had and no longer used as they are not
suitable for the way we work. He had made small benches which the children can easily carry around
and are very versatile.
Result at the time of writing : -
34 small benches, 3 bookcases, 11 tables and 15 chairs to come – marvellous!
