Building A House for Grandma

While walking through our village trying to check in on some kids who haven’t been going to tutoring, we stumbled across a house being built. I love this kind of stuff.

The new house. See all the buckets!

Building a house is very much part of culture here. Some houses are built out of block, but most in the villages are built of bamboo and a combination of mud, rock and for some, cement.

First the men dig a series of holes about 2 feet apart and 3 feet deep, then they put large sticks in these holes and pack the dirt back in. I always love finding a house with it’s holes dug but no sticks. It looks like connect the dots, and when you connect them you get a house floor plan!

Next they lay bamboo horizontally across the sticks and tie them into place with what I call tire rope (an old tire that has been cut into thin strips), wire or something else rope like.

A little game of peek-a-boo through the wall.
Notice the black on the left, that is the tire rope. On the left is also
one of the sticks that is inserted to the hole in the ground, then the tire rope
is used to attached two bamboo halves. 

The bamboo gets attached to both the inside an outside of the stick, creating a space for either mud or rocks. Next the roof beams go up and then the roof goes on.

Inside corner with roof support. If you look close, you can see in the corner they
used another type of "rope" not sure what this is. 

Once the roof is on, it’s the women’s turn to work. They gather huge piles of red dirt and bucket of water to make little bricks (more like balls) of mud that they place between the two pieces of bamboo.

More buckets, I just love all the different colors!

Latino and one of the granddaughters filling the wall.
Nice "brick" work Latino!

As we came across the house being built, there was a group of women working on the mud walls. What I love about this is it looks more like a party than a work day. Imagine four generations of females in your family gathering to get the job done, about 20 people. The oldest probably being 80 and the youngest, less than a month old, spending the day on her back in the shade.

The oldest women in the group holding the youngest.
Grandma is getting a new home!

Because we know one of the women working on the house, we are welcomed in and invited to look around. I am so impressed, this is the largest mud house I have ever been in! A typical mud house bed room is no more than 9’x9’ often even 7’x6’. These rooms were 10’x12’, I’m not sure why but this encourages me and makes me happy. I guess I’ve just seen so many houses and wondered, “How on earth does this entire family fit in here?”

We learned that the home would be for the oldest woman and most of the work was being done by her granddaughters. The granddaughters we talked to had come in from Pemba to help do the work, while the older ladies cared for the smallest babies.

I asked if they would like me to take a picture of their whole family. It was hilarious. They had never taken a group picture before, so Latino was trying to help them figure out how to stand close to each other. He showed them to put their arms around each other’s shoulders. I was messing with my camera and when I looked back up, one woman placed her hand on her sisters head, rather than on her shoulder. Then when Latino came behind me, he put his hand up in the air and was counting to 3 for me to take the picture. I don’t think he realized but he was counting in English. Before I could correct him, I noticed that all the ladies were putting their hands in the air, mimicking his hand in the air counting. It was classic...

The shade made it hard to get a full group picture, but I love
how intense these women look. 

Latino trying to show the ladies to stand closer together
and put their arms around each others shoulders.  

Hands in the air, counting down!

It brings a smile to my face thinking of some day down the road. If someone offers to take a group picture of them…  will they all put their hands up in the air?