Habitat Build - March 17th

For this build, we went to a house in dehiwela to cement the floors of the families newly built house. Most of the house was built and the floors were the last thing to be done. although it may sound easy, cementing involves much carrying, shoveling and mixing.

The first step is to collect the sand and mix it up with the cement using shovels. The ratio is about 18 buckets of sand to one bag of cement. a bucket here really means a sort of tray in which stuff is carried about. The technique used to mix them efficiently is to shovel underneath the pile and the turn it over on the same spot until it reaches the sand and cement becomes sort of dark gray color. Afterwards the mixture is arranged in a sort of crater shape in which gravel and water is put. the last time i worked with cement, it was for walls and only water was added, but this time we had to mix about 15 buckets of gravel in with the cement.once the water was added the same technique was used to mix up the gravel and cement/sand, however it is much harder with the gravel present. The mixed cement was then carried into the house where it was laid down by 2 workers. This was a new skill which i learnt through this experience

It was extremely hard work and what made it worse was the extreme heat that we had to work in. it was not the shoveling that was the most difficult task, but carrying the sand, gravel and mixed cement to where it was needed, and the cement mixture really is rather heavy. Despite being exhausted, i still tried to carry as much cement as I could and i think this showed perseverance and commitment. However, halfway through, we decided to abandon our old strategy in which anyone did whatever job was available, and took an assembly line approach. 2 people would shovel and the other three would pass the buckets to each other. this method turned out to be much more efficient and much less strenuous. and is an example of when i worked collaboratively with others. in the end we had made enough cement for 2 rooms.
Overall, i think that the goal we were striving towards when building the house, was the problem of poverty, which in my opinion is an issue of global importance.