With the magic of the internet and photography, over two weeks worth of blood, sweat (and surprisingly no tears) is about to appear before your eyes……..
At the farm area of Lohada, we are going to build a chicken coop for 50 chickens. We dug 11 holes, 70 cm deep, for poles for the coop and fence. It makes me appreciate the work people do here in the hot sun. After, we came back to our homestay hot, tired and dirty. – Alexandra
Discussing the plan at the farm with Happiness, better known as Mama Wambura.
The site of the future chicken home. Emmanuel is the farmhand, and he lives at the back right behind the white wall. The pigs and one cow live in the pens to the left of the photo.
We always had an audience
Today we put in the posts and poured cement. The cement dried in no time at all because it was so hot. I had a fantastic time. In the pig sty we saw three one day old piglets with their umbilical cords still hanging from them! They were very very cute and pink too! – Isaac
Mixing cement with Emmanuel
There was precious little shade, and it was HOT!!
We got lots of boards nailed up today. I think this is going to help a lot. It will provide fresh eggs to eat and add protein to the children’s diet. Right now they eat meat twice a week. The rest of the week they get beans for nutrients. There is a myth about cooking beans here, that you must cook them naked or the beans will be hard or undercooked! -Alexandra
We continued nailing up boards today and finished the front fence. -Isaac
The view of Mt Meru right behind the farm. It is directly south of Mt Kilimanjaro.
We went to go to work today but there was a van stuck in front us. The van was out of gas. A man brought some gas but it was also out of battery too!! We ended up pushing it uphill to the intersection. It took over an hour just to get out of the driveway! – Isaac
We are always good entertainment for the locals, whatever we do.
We did manage to get more of the front done despite the delay.
Working on roof supports
Working on the front gate
One day while we were working on the chicken coop, I got pooped on by a poisonous spider!! The chicken coop started looking really nice, the boards were all up. It took a while though. We started to put up the chicken wire and tin for the roof and it started looking like a real chicken coop! Then all we had to do was put up two doors and we were done! I felt we did something that would last, and also the kids would get eggs. – Isaac
Chicken wire!! Exciting!
Working on the nesting boxes
Happy Chickens on their perch
The piglets got bigger along with the coop
Emmanuel was very happy with everything, especially because Baruch helped him fix his own roof, which was leakier than the chicken coop!
I enjoyed the process and completion of the chicken coop! It makes me feel that what we did will have an impact for Lohada and that is what I think volunteering is about. – Alexandra
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