New Home Construction

Back in February I had an awesome opportunity to help with the design and construction of a new home for a very poor family that lives south of the airport here in Cochabamba. The head of the family is a 21 year old named Carina. Both of her parents are dead and as a result she takes care of her three siblings and her own son. Here is a picture of the one room house that they currently live in that is in the middle of a "lake" that floods them out of their house every year. Her house is made mostly out of old pieces of corrugated metal and cardboard. The back wall is made out of adobe, and here in Bolivia there are beetles that live in the adobe that make your heart swell and can kill you if they bite you.

The project was started by Chris and Erin Sidmore, pictured below, who are missionaries from Montana. Chris also teaches at Carachipampa, the school that Natalie and I know work for on a part time basis. The goal is to build around ten very simple houses for different families that live in this area. Carina's new home will be the first one.

My job was to come up with the basic design of the house and to design the foundation. Once the design was done I traveled out to the site with a team of high school students from Carachipampa and directed the work for the foundation. It took twelve of us eight hours to dig and pour the foundation. Construction down here is a whole different ball game!

Here is a picture of the foundation after we finished digging and placing the rebar. You might notice the tools laying across the ditch, those are what we suspended the rebar from. Carina's old house can also be seen in the background.

After lunch we poured the foundation. Most of the group helped with the mixing and transporting of the concrete to the site as we had to mix about 400 yards away since it was the only place with electricity in the immediate area. Myself and one of the kids, Levi, worked and finished the concrete.

One of the coolest parts of the experience was working alongside Carina as she helped us with the digging.

Currently there is a mason working on the walls of the one room house. When he is done I will travel back out to the site to direct construction of the roof and to help pour the concrete floor. It was a pretty awesome experience and I look forward to helping them finish this first house before we leave in May.