At Airfield School, the children helped unload the white-wood boards and all the tools off the truck to the building site. Truckloads of cement bags, sand, stones and steel rods are already at the site. Benny was able to negotiate a good price for all materials. Monday morning the community members will start molding the blocks. (This weekend they all traveled to a funeral at another village.) Benny is patiently teaching them how to calculate, measure, estimate cost, plan schedule, think one step ahead, ask if you do not understand, be on time and deliver what you have promised.
Each day there is a new surprise…The draftsman changed all the measurements and some of the specifications that Benny gave him. "It’s OK, later you can do whatever you want", he told Benny. Bennny didn’t go along with that and the draftsman is now redoing his drawings. The contractor called the draftsman to get the measurements… and the site was pegged and marked with the wrong measurements. Luckily Benny caught it on time, and the next day they remeasured the site, moved the white boards. Every day Benny finds another item that was not included in the estimate. The building is 3 ft above ground, due to the wet ground. How about steps to climb up? Foundation for the steps? The steel bender needs a bench. Why did not you think about it before he comes? In the process I am getting a good education on construction in Ghana. I now know the right proportion when mixing the cement, sand and stones. Except that here they measure by wheelbarrows and head pans. The 18"x 9"x 6" blocks for the foundation are one bag of 50kg cement mix with 14 head pans of sand. The 18"x 9"x 5" blocks for the building are one bag of cement, two wheelbarrow of sand and two wheelbarrow of sawdust. Benny lives, walks, sleeps, dreams the project. He is thinking of ideas to raise the last $10,000 so that he can finish the school.
Ho is a positive change for me. Prosper jokingly calls me "City Girl" and "American Princess" (if he only knew…), because I politely declined the offer to stay at Ida ‘s house and another place that Prosper offered us. It was far from the center of town and I told him that I will be too lonely surrounded by corn fields and goats. Prosper owns a car garage and he lent us an old blue truck. I enjoy the comfort of Malisel Hotel and its central location. John the owner was educated in Russia and he is of great help to us.
I need to figure out what role I will play at Airfield School. The headmistress was not in school all week. Sick? We saw her in town…. Teachers were sleeping on benches, some classes had no teachers, kids in second grade who could not read. Benny is planning to meet with the Head of the Board of Education, the mayor of the city, and the community activists and talk to them about the quality of education at the school. In the meanwhile, I take exploration walks in the morning and evenings.
It is hot during the day. I am checking possibility to start sewing and making batik with the local women. The women around me have perfect posture from carrying heavy loads on their head, strong arms and shoulders from pounding the fufu, they bend forward to the ground with straight backs and have enlarged behind, comfortable seat for the babies. Nature wonders.
