Divide and conquer. Most of our team stayed at the Nuru Centre to work on the schoolhouse. Working on the school involved heading back down to the dry riverbed and schlepping sand up a steep hill and lifting the buckets over the wall that was created yesterday. Planning ahead is a lost art. Enough sand had to be hauled to level the entire floor. It took most of the day.
Five of us went back to the deaf church to finish the job there. The da started with tamping down the floor so get it ready for cement. Tamping involves taking a rough hewn 6-foot board 3 inches thick by 5 inches wide with a 6-inch by 20-inch board nailed to the end of it and slamming it down on the ground to pack it flat. It destroys your hands and exhausts your shoulders and arms in no time. We had to set up a rotation between the three guys so we could last the day. Besides pounding the ground, we learned to put a thin skin on plaster to get it reedy for painting. The paint, about the consistency of skim milk, was applied with rollers that looked as though they were used to paint tanks in the second world war. The covers had nap shorter than the hair on Glenn's head and kept sliding off the roller body. I hate painting under optimal conditions, and these conditions were not optimal. However, we got the floor pounded, the walls plastered and painted, and the people were thrilled with the results.
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