More building progress

Once again, Watson and crew have made great progress in my absence. There has been a lot of interest and excitement about earthbag building in the community. People come to look at the cool structure and see how solid it is compared to the traditional cinder block that they use and want to know more. The building inspector that came out even asked if we'd do a workshop to teach more people about it. Another nonprofit organization wants to build some buildings in the spring and will use some of our now experienced employees. Right now we're employing 23 workers full time on the project and should be able to keep that up through December. Hopefully we'll be able to raise more money between now and then to finish the school, which would extend the construction into the spring.

They finally have a decent kitchen. We'll be getting them a new rocket stove next week from The Paradigm Project that will more than cut in half the amount of charcoal used at the school. If you have time, I highly recommend spending some time reading The Paradigm Project's ideas about providing aid in the third world. http://www.theparadigmproject.org/about-us/ I especially like their views on sustainability. I really hope that we are able to make our school sustainable, both for the educational opportunities that are presented in the process and so that the school and children's home is not dependent on foreign aid to continue providing for the children's needs. Check out this sustainable school started by Martin Burt in Paraguay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_9VpICMPuo&feature=related

Here is the second shade canopy. This one is on the school's property and will be used for two temporary classrooms when school starts on Oct. 5th until we finish the remaining classrooms.

If you've ever had to stand or sit on the floor for an extended period of time, you can appreciate how excited everyone was to have new chairs and tables.
The piece of plywood is there to anchor the inverter to and everything electrical that will be run to this point from all of the future buildings at the school. It has chicken wire over it and will be plastered over so you won't be able to see it. The earthbag walls themselves are extremely solid and hold nails very well, so hanging things on the walls isn't a problem. We just wanted to play it safe for the heavy electrical boxes and put the plywood there to screw into. It is anchored into 2x4 pieces that are buried between the courses of bags to give it even more stability.

As you can see in the picture above, the roof is off center. Jaime did this because there are no entries in the back of the building and he wanted to maximize the amount of shade around the perimeter to keep it cool inside. Any lower in the front and tall people would have to duck to pass underneath. The plan has a lot of windows for ventilation. As a rule in earthbag construction, you should have at least 3 feet between windows for stability with a good lintel above that extends at least 12 inches on each side. We used a very reinforced bond beam to serve as our lintel.
Since there are no Simpson ties in Haiti, we had these 13" L shaped brackets made for half the price that they cost at Home Depot.
To keep the roof hurricane proof, we ran a piece of rebar above the tin roofing above every other purline.
Some of the guys are prepping the foundation for the next building. Smaller gravel goes on top of the larger rocks and is then tamped level.
The electrical conduit is covered by the plaster. Once we're done with the interior plaster, we'll do the finish layer on the floor. If you look in the upper corner, you'll notice that the bond beam has a diagonal that comes into the room about 2 feet. He did this on each corner for added seismic stability.

Roof!

Finally

Since there's not an internet connection fast enough in Leogane to upload pictures, it will probably be a few weeks in between updates on the blog. This trip down was very productive on many levels. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Barb Johnson and Tode Hafen worked tirelessly all week through a noisy generator, unbearable heat, bucket showers and toilets, and some interesting food. They must have worked at least 12 hours on most days and were always as chipper as if they were kids at Disneyland, just happy to be serving these beautiful children. Thanks, ladies. Those uniforms will be passed down through many a kid for years to come.

This is what I stepped off the plane to a few weeks ago, courtesy of Jaime, from Belize. He had the first four foundational rows done, double bagged with stabilized earth (10% cement mixed in). We brought Jaime over to Haiti for a month to teach us how to build with earthbags, and he has exceeded all expectations. Thank you so much, Jaime. If anyone is interested in learning how to build using this method, you can visit Jaime and his family for a workshop in Belize on a beautiful piece of land that they have out in the country there. His email is barzakhfalah@gmail.com

This is Pastor Jack, doing the initial plaster work, before the chicken wire. Jack's a great worker and just got promoted because he has caught on so well.

Here we brought in dirt in to raise the floor up to the appropriate level. It must be tamped and leveled and then we put in a layer of about four inches of gravel on top of that which serves as a moisture barrier and tamped it down. Above that we put some stabilized earth and tamped it really well. It is very solid. For the finish coat, they'll trowel a thin layer of colored cement for a "dirt" cheap cement floor.

Progress is slow (about two rows of bags a day was our average), but the stability and afford-ability that this building system offers makes it worth it. It's hard to believe how solid these structures are.

They were just getting ready to pour the reinforced cement bond beam to tie it all together when I left yesterday.

Jamie and Watson have played huge roles in making all of this possible.

The tamped, stabilized earth floor, almost ready for the final coat. We'll wait until we've plastered the interior walls before we finish it.

The cement plaster is nothing new for our workers since most buildings use it here.

The Spanish put in a permanent shade canopy that doesn't get knocked over in the heavy rain and wind. Each child also has their own chair now.

But perhaps the thing that I was happiest to see was that the children will be sleeping on a dry floor for the rest of the rainy season.

We brought in a projector and a laptop and watched a movie on a screen we made with a white sheet. The kids were so entertained, I wonder if some of them had ever seen a kids movie. Movie night was complete with a bag of treats that we shared. We've decided to make movie night a weekly event, something that they'll look forward to all week.

The Johnson's and Hafen's brought down a couple of these indestructible soccer balls which were donated by "One World Football Project". The balls are supposed to last for years and years, and have already held up better than any other ball that I've seen being used in the third world.

These kids will steal your heart in no time at all.

They loved Kerry's thumb trick.

Nail painting party.

They brought down all kinds of wonderful things for the children that Jean Marc had requested.

The Relief Society in their ward made dresses for each of the girls.

All of the girls in their beautiful new dresses.

Jean Marc and the kids were finally able to meet the man who has made all of this possible. THANKS, JEREMY!

Still here, even though you can't see us...

The school is coming along really well, the walls are about 3/4 of the way done. The sad thing is that I can't show you pictures because the internet connection here in Leogane is too slow. I'll be updating with pictures this weekend...