Mud Hut

During our 3rd week stay in Amani, we were joined by a group of high school student from all across the US called Shoulder-To-Shoulder. They were the man power behind building this mud hut or peace hut. The founder of Amani Center plans to expand and build another complex, the one you see in the picture that has two floors. I don't remember if I mentioned this in the previous posts, but ever since these STS students came in, we had very little meat to eat at dinner since they have been eating it. But after these students left, us medical students decided to take up the opportunity to work on the hut ourselves. It was a lot more work than we have ever thought. Since we didn't have gloves, we had to use our bare hands to handle the shovels, buckets, and wheel barrel of dirt.

 But let me explain abit of the process. There are two types of material: sand and reddish soil. We are to mix these two homogenously and then add water to it to make it thicker and more compactable. The process of mixing is solely on us, the manual labor. The two piles were to be shoveled together to be mixed. Once the piles have been mixed well with each other and with water, we can then transfer it to buckets that are carried to the hut. We filled bags with these mixtures of dirt and stacked them on each other. Then there are barbwire placed on top (see picture) to avoid the bags moving within each other. The STS students started from ground zero and already made up to 20 rows by the time they left. We Michigan crew just did the top row that went over the door frame. Afterward, the rest of the villagers would plasticize the outside with two layers of mud (I believe).

The kids from the Amani Center would also help the STS students. There is a strike going on these past two weeks from the teacher union. Hence the kids did not have to go to school for the time being.

 

Below are the pictures of our Michigan crew doing at it. You can see the hut is nearly finished at this time. It was quite sunny that day so we burned quite a bit. Plus our hands did not receive a very good treatment that day either, especially the two guys. My back ached a lot afterward from constantly keep it bent over the pile of dirt. We had mini shovels, unlike the one at home. This was quite an interesting experience that I enjoyed a lot despite the damages on my body. I also started developing a cold the previous day so my eyes were constantly watery and my nose were runny and congested. It does not sound like a pleasant experience, but seeing what the Kenyans can do, I thought to myself these are all minor setbacks I am facing. Even though we may not be the best trained, I feel I can do equally as much as our fellow Kenyans can or at least keep my energy up to keep the process moving. Lucky, we are relatively large enough to rotate our turn with the shoveling or lifting buckets to the top or filling the sand bags.

When lunch time came at 1pm, we were so happy to walk back because we were indeed quite hungry by that time. I have to give credit to the STS students on how much effort and strength they put in to continuously work on the same task over and over.

Above you can see a hand-powered drill and hand saw (for cutting metal). If they had electrical tools, how much faster would the construction been? Some much we take for grant back at home as simple as power tools. I constantly feel like I am traveling back in history, when civilization first started developing. We have come so far and the other day, it was our nation's 237th bday. We are clearly have the upper hand but that due to our massive history record. We have grown through rough patches of history as well. I do not feel extreme pity or sadness for what I see in Kenya, but rather  excitement for a growing country that will make leaps and bounds to catch up to America and perhaps even surpass us.