50 Bags of Cement = 1000 Concrete Blocks

2 weeks, 4 blisters, lots of Ibuprofen, hot sunny days, a great farmers tan, 50 bags of cement, who knows how much sand but it was a lot……. we have completed the block making project for my time here. We finish about 1000 blocks to be used for the walls of the school. This will not be enough to complete the school as it will be three stories, but it is a huge accomplishment making it one step closer to completion.Remember when I said we had to make 300? Well… something was lost in the translation part and Kwaku meant about 300 that day not total!!



There were some obstacles along the way mainly the fact that cement is not readily available so sometimes that meant we only had 4 or 5 bags for the day or it none at all. Timing, a work crew of two sometimes three would carry each bag about half a mile one by one on their heads to bring them to the work site because no one owns a car here and the taxis charge a lot to transport cement. I am strong but I couldn’t even lift the bags to pour out the cement much less carry one on my head!
Plus there was nowhere to store it so we could only bring to the site what we could finish that day. Construction in Ghana is nothing like the US, which I’m sure you all knew, you do not go to Home Depot in a pick-up truck and get it all the supplies you need or follow any type of safety regulations, the boys worked in flip flops or no shoes at all – OSHA would have a field day! The other thing as I have mentioned in previous posts is you build when there is money available, my program fee helped covered the cost of 50 bags of cement which was $600 Ghana Cedis (about $400 US) so from what I understand they will stop building for a couple of weeks until the next volunteers arrive and they have more money and help.

All in all I’m very proud of the work that we accomplished, I was hoping to be able to build some of the walls but it just wasn’t in the cards, we didn’t have enough blocks. However, knowing that they can at least start on the walls of the school because of the work that I helped accomplish which makes it all worth the sore muscles, blisters, sunburned shoulders and weathered skin. I will end this post with a quote I read today:

“Do not let yourselves be discouraged or embittered by the smallness of the success you are likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You would not be able in a single generation, to create an earthy paradise. Who could expect that? But, if you could make life ever s better, you will have done splendidly, and your lives will have been worthwhile.”~ Arnold Toynbee~