Day 6: Thursday, February 24

I have to admit. There’s not a whole lot of new material to share today. We had another full day of work today, which meant that we were able to get two full rows completed, and then start the row of trench blocks, called “solera” blocks.

The solera blocks are u-shaped blocks. These go about 7 rows up from the foundation, and they mark the bottom of the windows in the house. They are shaped as they are to form a trench for additional rebar to be laid in horizontally and tied in with the vertical rebar for extra support. This was a big milestone. Not only because we had officially gotten farther than they had planned for the week, but because we can really start to see how we are building a house!

While some of us are laying the bricks, the rest are working on the floor. The interior of the house has to have dirt brought in and packed down very hard as a foundation for the floor. In keeping with the theme of not having the tools to make the job easy, we don’t have a nice machine to vibrate the dirt and pack it down. Instead, we have to cart the dirt in and use sticks stuck into coffee cans filled with cement to pack it down and make the floor as level as possible. It’s somewhat demoralizing to bring in a good 4-5 inches, pack it down and only have built up the floor about a half inch.

But we keep hauling and packing it down. We brought in a good block and half’s worth of plain dirt, and then added another layer of white sand (which packs more tightly) mixed with cement and sprinkled with water to create a harder base. Later, when they are putting in the finishing touches, they will pour a concrete floor, and probably put tile on top of that.

Unfortunately, John got sick tonight just after dinner. But he has the entire team, the Habitat staff, and the hotel staff to look after him, so I’m sure he’ll be fine soon. Hopefully he’ll be able to join us tomorrow, at least for the celebration tomorrow afternoon!