A house for Anna & Felito

After a 3 hour ride, on partially on bumpy African roads, we arrived at the land given to Africa on Fire Ministries. We were greeted by Aggie, a missionary from Brazil. After we set up our tents and settled in a little he showed us around the land, pointing out where different buildings were going to be built. He directed us to a building foundation constructed of cement blocks and filled in with red African dirt. This was the beginnings of Anna and Felito’s house. The foundation had been started earlier that week. For cost reasons and because they wanted their house built pretty quickly, they decided to go with caniso walls, which means made completely out of bamboo. You know the bamboo huts you see on National Geographic? Yea, something like that, but a 4 bedroom 1 bathroom home. 

The next day Felito asked me if I would be willing to create a floor plan for his house. Without any measurements I went to work trying to find the best way to place 4 bedrooms, a pretty large kitchen (for Anna’s amazing cakes), a living room, and a bathroom into roughly a 36′ x 24′ space. A space comparable to my 2 bedroom apartment in college. I grabbed my notebook paper and went to work. At work and in school I would have gone to my drafting table and sketched something out and then grab my tools and create a presentation before showing Felito. But this is Africa and all I have is paper given to us in India and a pack of $1 markers I picked up at a general store. I guessed the dimensions and drew up a few options that I thought could work for their growing family. I was able to squeeze a sizeable pantry in option 2 for Anna and she was excited about that so we went with that one. No revisions needed, no going back and forth with the contractor, and no dragging out the process while we wait for someone to return a phone call. I drew up the plans one day and the next I was standing in what would be the kitchen going over the rooms with the men who would help us with the construction. 

We spent the first day digging up dirt, which is more like sand here, and filling in the rest of the foundation. Next we were supposed to pour concrete but since (this is Africa and) things move a little slower here we had to wait for concrete to show up. So we got to work constructing the caniso. Right next to the house were heaps of bamboo that we needed to tie together in long strands. These long strands would later be cut into the desired lengths for the walls. This job filled our work day for the next 3 weeks. While we were constructing the walls the columns start to go up according to my floor plans. In America you put studs up every 16″ or 24″, depending on code, but here they just go up wherever, more so like every 5′ or 10′. Since we don’t have any electricity on the land they brought in a generator so that we could use an electric saw to cut the columns and beams. At this point I was starting to see my floor plan come to life which was exciting. Every now and then I’d be called over to instruct where doors were going to be placed or where I wanted the plumbing to go. Before the guys knew my name they called me Mrs. Advanced Engineer lady. Eh, okay. I hold up the floor plans and instruct the workers where the doors will need to be placed. They simply drag their foot on the dirt to show where walls and doors will go, no measurements needed. 

During our 2^nd week in Chibuto it was time to start putting up the roof. The roof went up pretty fast as the workers climb on the beams like a big jungle gym. The next week we received the cement mix so we could start pouring the floors. The first day of pouring floors went pretty smoothly. The cement mix was put in the big mixers with sand and water. Unfortunately the machines broke and we then had to mix the cement by hand, which is not an easy task.