It's been just over a week and a half since construction began in Saviefe Deme, and what used to be a small clearing of land dotted with trees has already been transformed into the first stages of a new school building. I'm amazed at how much can be accomplished by a determined group of people without the use of any modern construction equipment. As one Ghanaian put it "In the US you use machine power to build, here we use man power" Equally as important to the "man power" this farmer spoke of, is grandma power. I find myself in competition with women in their 60's and 70's, trying to match the enormous loads they carry balanced on their heads without the slightest sign of strain or effort. Once during an all too brief moment of satisfaction I thought I had finally out done the old women by carrying a 50kg bag of cement on my head, only to have my pride shattered when a particularly aged woman shuffled by me carrying the same load with an enormous grin on her face. Perhaps a lifetime of eating banku has given her bones of steel, maybe Erickson has concocted a new brand of akpeteshie infused with HGH, or maybe I'm just having a hard time coming face to face with the fact that a woman three times my age could probably bench press me in her sleep. Either way a group of these women would be a force to be reckoned with on any construction site.
The community has divided itself into three groups that sacrifice a day out of their week to provide labor for the work site. Alongside these suspiciously strong grandmas are also younger men and women and a couple of equally determined yevus working side by side to complete the project. The First stage of the project involved clearing the area of land where the school will be built. This involved uprooting trees and clearing brush with only machetes and pack axes. Despite the lack of equipment the arduous job was completed in less then a day.
Next we began digging the foundation. We created a grid of trenches with a depth of 4 feet to ensure the school would have a solid foundation.
After the trenches were completed we began mixing and pouring concrete. While masons mixed together sand, cement, water, and aggregate (provided once again by the relentless squad of grandmas) the rest of us carried large bowls of the concrete to the trenches and began filling in the foundation. The masons directed this task and after a couple of days we were ready to start placing blocks into the foundation and begin forming one of the exterior walls. This is as far along in the construction process as we have come but given the short time we have done it in it is nothing short of a monumental effort only a community as close knit as Saviefe Deme is capable of. The school appears to be forming out of nowhere with the same ferociousness as my awesome farmers tan. Every day I look forward to getting to Saviefe and working with the community that makes the whole task less of a job and more of a celebration. Although the work is hard there seldom is a time when people aren't laughing or acknowledging each others efforts. The older women are the loudest of all and their laughter seems to increase any time one of us volunteers struggles to do something that is second nature to them, or any time Obolo Kodzo is in the area. It is hard not to laugh along with them and they are always the first to offer advice or readjust the pads of cloth we use to cushion our heads from the blocks or bowls we carry on them.
If the school continues at this pace I would be surprised if the whole thing wasn't finished by this summer, but part of me wants to drag out the project out as long as I can just to stay in Saviefe Deme as long as possible.
(KODZO DOING WORK)
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