Our House, In the Middle of our Compound

Life continues in between broken buildings, the newly built, and those under construction, portraying a chain of events: man-made and natural.

We (all of us) built a house for a family, in the middle of a large compound shared by 3 bothers and their family [16 kids in total]. The state of the compound is the direct result of flooding in these areas. Amidst the ruins of the old structures started our house project, which directly inspired the family to complete their whole compound before the coming of the rain. With our project finished, the remaining houses are raising at a constant rate.

Construction, Climate, Culture

For the last three weeks our focus has been on construction, or reconstruction. We have fetched sand, water, gravel, wood, and other materials countless times. We've formed piles, and moved these piles one shovel-full at a time. We have made bricks, burned them, and carried them, made mortar and plaster. The carpentry and masonry were outsourced to specialists, but we did our best to participate.













A couple of technological interventions in the way of flood adaptations have been incorporated in the new work. Most noted are the use of a solid foundation, four courses deep of concrete block, and the addition of bitumen to the plaster mix for the protective outer coat of the building's envelope. The zinc sheets were not our decision. However, they were clearly preferred by the owner of the house and the local NGO we have been working with called TIMAACHAAB (this translates to "lets work together" in the local dialect, Buili).

Working together with these people we have gained a tremendous insight into the minds and hearts of the residents, who are regularly plagued by floods, drought, food insecurity, and poverty, yet live with a resilience and strength that is admirable. It has also been a great lesson in teamwork, making the overwhelming challenges of recovery seem both feasible and pleasurable.















Stepping inside the newly roofed space the room seemed cool, and there was a slight breeze moving from the doorway out of the window. We decided to sleep two nights in the compound, in order to test the difference between sleeping on the roof of a traditional structure, to sleeping inside our newly built work. Although the second night we were tempted to sleep on the roof again (nothing compares to sleeping under an open sky), we were driven indoors by the rain. Unfortunately, we noticed a few slight leaks in the roof and window, but overall we staid dry. The noise from the rain was also very loud, but the fatigue and repetitive nature of the sound, made it easy to sleep.

Flooding and the Local Vernacular

After breakfast on our first day in Wiaga we had a walking tour of nearby flood affected houses. Wiaga is a small town near Sandema, where we are staying at a Catholic Mission house with Father Isaac Akapata. During the tour Father Isaac explained to us how people were adapting the local vernacular with new building technologies, so as to survive the rains. He showed us where sand is collected during the dry season to be mixed with cement for water resistant foundation blocks. We also saw an area were people would excavate the surface of the ground to gather a darker earth to make lancrate blocks, for higher layers.

We visited a couple of different housing styles, a modern block construction and one in a more traditional style such as that of Mr. Akokorah Angachaab.