House Project Week 3

This week for was full of activity and we still managed to make great progress on the house as well. On Monday we all went to Bodiga with Semillas de Ayuda for a range of projects from water vessels to agriculture. I concentrated on bottle lights. Well to say I concentrated, I delegated mainly. This was for two reasons. For one I know how to make and install them so it was more important for the volunteers, and especially Roberto and the womens group to learn. Secondly I am fed up to my eyes looking at them at this stage. The new design I talked about in the previous post is the best I can do and I can only hope that Semillas de Ayuda see it worthwhile to continue with them and eventually the people in la cumbre might start making them for themselves. I think they are a great addition to the houses for only 1.50 euros but im not sure if they will become the norm in la cumbre. For example we installed three examples in Bodiga on Monday but it was with limited success only. In one house I am fully convinced that the woman was so enthuiastic becuase she just wanted a hole in her roof fixed, she said there was a room in her attic but there was no sign of life. Suppose it benefited even if it wasnt for the intended use. The other was in a house that had more light than a green house so was more of a fashion accessory than a light. I hope the benefits will be seen eventually but am not fully convinced the amount of effort put into them will be worth it in the end, or more importantly if its worth the effort of Semillas de Ayuda to continue with them. This is the way with a lot of projects, it is hard to justify the initial effort without much benefit but then to be fair it probably is worth it for the times you are suprised.

Jon and Amaia teachin the women of Bodiga the fabrication of the bottle light and below Roberto installing the light.

Below is an example I installed in the doctors room....

Work on the house contiued from Tuesday to thursday, most work concentrating on the roof structure but also

Work on the house contiued from Tuesday to thursday, most work concentrating on the roof structure but also important mini projects like the repairs around the tyres with lime and sand (1 to 3 mix) to prevent water ingress by Jose Luis and Miren and the painting of all the timbers with borax as can be seen below being carried out by Jon and Amaia. In case your wondering, im delegating and trying to get some tan on my legs at same time.

Had to put this picture in x large because it was the only one I could find with me looking like I was working......

Myself anf John standing proudly with the first of the roof trusses up.....

Roof structure completed in record time thanks to everybodies hard work and drive.....

On Thursday nigth there was a special night in the hall in Chiantla for the school Sylvia attends, Fe y Alegria. We went with Dona Eulalia and family. We walked in and were ushered to the front seats like VIPs. Great for the family but there is no doubt it was a pure example of critical whiteness. They are white, must have money, must be more important than anybody else in here. Totally wrong by anyones standards but cant see it changing anytime soon.
The nights main event was something else that didnt sit well with me. It was basically a beauty contest of the girls from different towns and villages that attend the school. It is fairly typical kind of thing for Guatemala but for me I cant see anything good about it. On this night there were girls of 12 or 13 wearing typical clothing from there town parading up and down a stage watched by hundreds of their piers and other onlookers. It is fine for the girl who eventually wins maybe but what does it tell the other girls, your not pretty? Or as pretty? Now im not an expert by any means but at that age couldnt be a good thing surely. The other thing that got to me about it was that it basically was a popularity contest too, some girls had cheers others got more booing. I walked out and it was about 2 seconds before the rest of the gringo brigade were with me. Maybe we just dont understand the culture but you have my opinion on it now anyway.

On Saturday we went on a Family outting to La Cumbre. We didnt get a chance to bring rio san juan last weekend for her birthdaz because the weather was too bad so this was a second best choice and the volunteers got to see laguna magdalena as well.

The view from el mirador where we had the chance to see the peaks of 6 volcanoes. The sky looked bad but thank the gods the rain held off until we were on the way home.

Dona Eulalia showing off her indigineous skills. The walk to the lagoon was about 20 mins down a rough track and there was not a problem with her balancing the heavy bag on her head, Diego tried to balance it standing still without success so there is definiely a skill to it.

At the lake.........

Family photo at the viewing spot of the waterfalls........

View over the waterfall..........

Diego and Dona Eulalia getting the fire started for lunch. Me delegating..........

Saturday night on a different sort of outting to Huehue for a beer or two or..........

On the way home myself and Diego obviously hadnt done enough dancing. Dirty eigits.......

Sunday we went to Huehue again to the ruins. Think ive mentioned it before but the ruins were repaired by the United Fruit Company in the 50s with cement and brutal workmanship. The United Fruit Company or Chiquita as they are now known are also the instigators of the CIA backed coup around the same time. The socialist government wanted to pay United Fruit Company the same amount of money that they declared their lands worth in their tax returns for lands to be distributed to local indigineous people. They didnt want to take lands that were in use only the land that was not being used. But if people had their own land where would they have got the near slave labour from... call in the CIA and start a civil war that lasts almost 50 years. Sounds more sensible alright....  

After Zaculeu we headed for a town called San Juan Atitan. I posted the photo above in penance for my own stupidity. To be fair the hangover didnt help but after 10 months you would think I would know better than to be going around dressed for the beach in Huehuetenango. Below is the typical dress that still a lot of people wear and is Unique to this town. The nicest I have seen so far.

For the week ahead the plan is to continue with the roof and possibly the walls and floor too. The problem with the earth at the moment is that there is massive rainfall everyday so the site, along with the neighbouring properties will become a bog. Ideally we need a couple of days of dry weather before delivery but im not sure if this will be possible as it has rained consistantly every daz for a couple of hours for the last two weeks or more. There is also a possibility that the roof material will come in the form of a donation so I am reluctant to buy that just yet also, that along with the fact that the cash flow is not great for next week meaning that a lot of progress might not be made. We will see next Sunday I suppose..... Hasta luego......

House Project... Week 2

Above is a nice picture of the family. You cant really see Kimberley too well so below is a pic of what looks like Kimberly bringing the pig for a walk..... thats what you get for hiding... thats not actually a bow by the way its just a makeshift collar made from a piece of material that looks like a bow. Baaarrrrammmmuuuuu

We made good progress this week which I will explain below. We had help great help from 7 Spanish volunteers who travelled here with an organisation called Pandora http://www.aipc-pandora.org/ and are working with Inlex. Inlex also made a donation of 1,500 Q towards the building project which is greatly apreciated. With Alex and Paula the representatives from the two organisations and Roberto (for the week) we had 13 on site for one day. Wasnt always smooth to keep everyone busy but I would like to say a big thanks to the volunteers for their enthusiasm, interest and patience. Dona Eulalia is also doing the cooking of lunch and dinner for the volunteers during their stay which myself and Diego jumped in on everyday for lunch and managed to get the odd dinner in too. Must say its hard to beilieve that quality and variety of the food for an untrained cook nevermind the tools she has to work with.

 Diego explaining a bit about the project to some of the spanish volunteers (strangely only the girls)

The foundations took longer than I frist imagined and for a couple of days I thought my back was broken. Definitely we would still be at it if it wasnt for the hard work of everybody.

The foundations getting built. And before anybody writes any smart comments in the comment box. Yes, work has just got a hell of a lot more interesting, and no, the sheep in la cumbre still have a nervous look in their eyes. Joking aside, I would be doing the volunteers an injustice by saying they all work hard. From the time they arrive on site to when they leave they are all full of enthusiasm and energy.

Diego and the girls again...

The timber for the entire structure arrived on Tuesday afternoon. 1100 euros for the lot after a bit of bargaining and then some more bargaining...........

Bit of a theme here alright. Diego helping the girls......

Above and below can be seen the foundations of site stone and lime mortar, sitting on top tyres with the inside rim cut off and cut in half, with the base plate of 6 x 4 pine notched and bolted together also with steel rebar bent over the top tied to the RC ring beam below the founds. I had first planned on using the tyres as rising walls in the whole with stone packed inside, however due to the difficulty in digging the foundations, the lack of enough fill on site and a bit of re thinking on my part we decided to use them as a DPC and cushion to absorb seismic pressure.

The first of the columns going up..............

On Friday evening we all took a break as Diego decided he was going to let the kids cut off his dreadlocks. GET A HAIR CUT YOU HIPPY----------

This is the progress to date as on the end of day today Saturday week 2. You can see below that its starting to take shape. The small room top left corner is the toilet and shower room, the rectangular shape bottom left is the porch, top right is Dona Eulalias bedroom and the large room is the kitchen/dining/living room. Upstairs the room to the behind the stairs ope is for Luis and the bigger room closer to us is the room for the girls.

Before the spanish volunteers left for the lago Atitlan on Friday afternnon, the lucky bastxxds, we built some bottle lights which we are going to install in a place called Bodiga (which has no electricity) along with some other projects on Monday. It will also be the 1st opportunity for the volunteers to go to La Cumbre so they can see how they get on with the altitude etc.

The new improved design..... Instead of bending the cut flaps up I bent them down, this allows a better seal to be made around the joint of bottle and lamina where its most likely to leak, it also allows the use of epoxy mil in dabs just enough to stick the two elements together and not as an actual sealant. I also decided to use heat silicone arounf the joint instead of normal silicone and pop rivots will be used in installation to reduce the need for excessive silicone use. All in all we built 8 for a total cost of 84 Q (8.40E) and the installation should cost no more than 40 Q. So about 15Q or 1.50 euro for construction and installation cost combined. It was about 35 Q before with a far inferior design. Even if I do say so myself as the man says...........


Next week starting on Tuesday we hope to get the roof structure completed, the adobe (earth) floor in, the foundation walls tidied up a bit and the sewerage line completed. Myself and Diego plan on going to buy bambu for the roof and walls next thursday also.

Tomorrow we are going with Dona Eulalia and the kids to Rio San Juan for Dona Eulalias 40th birthday. I will have a few good photos for next week im sure..................

Big thank you to everybody who has donated or plans on donating to the project. We are still a bit short on funds to complete but we are getting there. Even so all donations would be greatly recieved. Send me an e mail if you would like the account details of Semillas de Ayuda. Muchas Gracias.....

House Project. Week One...

 Day 1 thanks to Brendas powers of persuasion the local Municipal agreed to lend us a digger and driver for the day to clear the site. Was about 200mm of topsoil and then pure rock would have been impossible to do by hand and very expensive to pay for.

 Site cleared left us with a lot of useful rocks for building and some top quality well graded fill material

 Marie the youngest child of 4 taking some time out from site camera work to do some modelling....

 We went around town to get some old pick up tyres for 20 cent a piece. They will be used as permanent formwork in the rising walls....

 First job after getting site levelled was to set up the levels and centre lines of walls to then dig foundations....

 Kimberley, Marie and luis inspecting the site.......

Diego and Pedro celebrating the final completion of digging the foundations. Diego is a friend I met in Antigua many moons ago who gladly agreed to come to help for the month. And actually came.... Pedro is Dona Eulalias brother, the one who donated the site and an animal for work.

Just in case you are wondering why we are building a house for a family with rich relations I will explain. Pedro was in the states for 8 years where he did reasonably well for himself working in construction before getting deported 4 months ago. During the time he managed to make enough to buy some land and build a house for himself. All the while being pretty much supporting the entire family 15 brothers and sisters and his parents (10 sibblings and 5 1/2 sibblings). Dona Eulalia is Pedros half sister and as is with every family politics and begrudgery are rife. He took a lot of flack off his full brothers and sisters for helping Dona Eulalias family with the last piece of land he had. Practically his front garden. He is now pretty much broke due to his fathers ankle break and being out of work since his return.

Sand being delivered................

 This is the concrete ring beam at bottom of foundation. The mix is 1 part cement, 2 sand and 3 site stone. There is a 1/2inch rebar running along the centre of the beam with uprights fixed at the corners and 2m intervals. The concrete along with keeping the steel from rusting adds to the strenght. The purpose of the ring beam is to act as a base for the masonry foundations and allows the timber ring beam at floor level which sits on the tyres to be fixed securely to the base. Tying the whole structure and founsd to the ground. The reasoning behind the whole design being that we use as much local cheap materials as possible in the lime and stone founds and allow sufficient movement (tyres) in an earth quake without actual diplacement as the building is securely fixed to the ground.

 There were some tree roots in the foundations so we drilled holes in the stump and drove pieces of copper rod into them to kill them so that we wont have a tree in teh kitchen in a few years.

 Hard to make out but this is the four corners of the building built up to 300mm below floor level.

The lime came from a local guy and came in slaked form. Basically rocks of lime. We first had to re hydrate it before it is workable. This is done by simply adding water and then watching as the lime bubbles and gives off a savage amount of heat before turnign into powder form ready for mixing.

Next week we will start by completing the masonry foundations, then we will be placing the tyres on top, we will then fill the tyres and floor with compacted hardcore (found on site), on top of this we will be securing the 6 x 4 inch pine ring beam by bending the rebar sticking out of pre cut holes over the top. Thus fixing the whole base together but allowing movement enough in an earthquake situation. We will have 7 spanish volunteers coming next week and possibly 3 or 4 of them for the 2 weeks after supplied by Inlex which will be well needed. I will up date the blog every Sunday from now until completion if you are interested in keeping up to date......

Below is a summary of the budget and costs to date if anybody is interested in the full trade break down, where the funds came from, the schedule and purchase orders (all in excell) to date send me an e mail (roryoconnor25@gmail.com) and i will send it on to you. If anybody wants a copy of the plans or 3D sketch up design (big thanks to Ross Boyce) let me know. Also if anybody is interested in donating to help reduce the 800 euro or so needed to complete the project please get in contact. 

	Q	Euros
Trade Summary
Site Clearance	0	0
Foundations	2,890	289
Structural Timber Frame	6464	646.4
Roof	7572	757.2
Wall infill	1927	192.7
Floor	2150	215
Plastering External	750	75
Plastering Internal	275	27.5
Plumbing (including 300 euro connection fee)	4419	441.9
Electrical	1420	142
Windows and Doors	1450	145
Labour and Machinery	3600	360
Total to complete project	Q32,917.00	€3,291.70
Available Funds	Q24,300	€2,430
Funds needed to complete	Q8,617.00	€861.70