habitat build

I figured I should actually mention the work that we are doing, instead of just the evening tours, foods, and such. (I was going to post some pictures of the site and the buildings that are already built along with the building that we are working on, but I forgot to bring my usb memory card transfer device ... so later.) We are working on the seventh of eight potential housing units on the site. The other six are completed and have families moved into them. There are six units on the bottom floor and six units on the top floor with attic space for extra rooms for larger families. We went inside one of the flats yesterday to see the finished product. Today we walked by a complex of Soviet area housing to get a feel of what these families are coming from - or more often worse. What a difference extra square footage, good neighbors, and owning your own home (as opposed to rented when you can be kicked out for any reason) can make. All of the buildings are out of concrete block and vermiculite block (lighter weight with great insulating value). They have central heating and one flat chose to have radiant floors added. We are making concrete - the old school way, hauling it over to the flats in wheelbarrows, carrying it up the stairs in buckets, and then dumping it for the topping slab. There it is leveled, and the process continues. To get a sense of how much concrete it takes - six buckets of water, thirty shovels of sand, two bags of cement, twenty shovels of sand, more water, and ten more shovels of sand. That makes about eight wheelbarrows full of concrete. Another task that we are working on is clearing the site from piles of wood (riddled with nails sticking straight up) from the future site of the eighth Habitat house. We will later be digging for the footings and the slab once the Habitat office receives the building permits. Any way, that is enough information for now, and pictures will be included later.