Hustling

Everyday I’m hustling (Feel free to sing along while reading this post) The construction is progressing at a good pace, but it has been a constant struggle to get all the supplies here without a reliable source of transportation. We have had 3 different commercial farmers agree to loan their tractors when not being used on the farm. This means we sometimes get a phone call that a tractor is available and then we have to hustle to arrange for it to go pick up sand, gravel, stones, or bricks (whichever one is most in need at that particular moment.) Currently, we are good on sand, gravel, and stones, but running low on bricks and will need to make some more trips to the kiln as soon as another tractor becomes available. Without the help of these overly kind commercial farmers, we would pay most of the money we raised to hire trucks, which are primarily based in Mkushi to come out and move construction supplies for us. There are currently only 2 canter trucks in the Chalata area: one belongs to an individual who knows we are in a bind and is trying to take advantage of us financially, but we are trying our best to divert as little money as possible to transportation so we save more for the construction project; the other belongs to the school. We asked permission to borrow the school vehicle for one day and agreed to pay for fuel so it would cost the school nothing, but they declined. It was very frustrating to be turned down by the school headmaster after everything we’ve done over the years to help so many students at the school. Unfortunately, many of the teachers here are just working for their paycheck and do not really care about the students. Still there are some incredible teachers who want to see these students succeed and they are more than happy to help our project as much as possible. Even in the community we find the same 2 different types of people. Some are just trying to take advantage of the muzungu (white people) that they assume are rich, while others recognize that our work is for the benefit of their community and they are happy to help where they can. Our brick maker has proven to be of the second type. He gave us a fair price on the bricks and after that he visited our site to learn more about it and realized how much we struggle to get water. Water has been the biggest struggle throughout this construction process. Our landlord originally said we could use the pump at our house to fill the four 50 gallon plastic drums we have and he transport them to the site daily for free. Of course this sounded like an excellent plan until is vehicle broke 3 days after we began construction and has been in the shop ever since. The next plan was simply to use wheelbarrows to bring buckets full of water up the 250 meter hill to our site and refill the drums that way. If Ackson, Aaron, and myself work together we can manage, but the work is exhausting. After seeing this, our brick maker said the current plan of trekking to the river was not very good and that instead he could loan us his spare water pump as long as we could afford the diesel to run it. Diesel isn’t cheap here, but it is well worth buying a few liters to run the pump and save ourselves some of the work. The only issue with this system is that we have to borrow hoses from another generous man, but he only has about 200 meters of hoses. So we are able to pump the water near our site, fill the four drums and then we still have to roll the drums up the hill the remaining 50-60 meters so the construction can proceed at a good pace. Our builders are doing a good job so far and working very hard, but we continue to struggle and hustle to get them all the supplies they need in order to continue work. It seems like for the most part we are right on pace with them and never even a step ahead. Today we are ordering the remainder of the supplies from Mkushi, primarily roofing materials which we hope to have delivered by next week. So many days, I fondly look back on home improvement projects with my parents and reflect on how much easier this would be if we had a home depot down the street and a pick up to drive. Nobody said this work would be easy, but we are proving that it is possible with all the generous support from American donors, local commercial farmers, and the few kind villagers who have offered the little they have to see this work succeed. Knowing how much support we have gives me the energy to keep hustling and finish this construction. P.S. The photo shows our 50 gallon drums where we have to fill them (as far as the hose will reach) and in the background just behind the tractor is where we have to roll the drums to in order for the construction workers to continue mixing cement and building.