Water carrier bringing water to make mortar for construction.
A critical item in construction is water. The nearest well to this school project was about a kilometer away. The women of the village, in some cases mothers of the students of the school, earned a very small amount of extra money by carrying water. The cistern in the background was for rainwater, suitable for drinking, a commodity too valuable to use to make mortar.
Notice that this woman is using a khanga as a carrying strap for the jerrycan, it is softer than rope and most women have one with them, so it is readily available.
Kwa Muema means “Good Place”, but I can’t remember if it is Swahili or Kikamba. It was the name of the secondary school under construction in these pictures.
One of my various projects these past few months has been to learn more about post-processing. Cee’s challenge this week gives me a chance to try out some vintage black and white techniques in LightRoom. I thought they suited the classic nature of the subject: these pictures could have been taken almost any time in the last hundred years.
These are pictures taken on my first trip to Africa. We went as part of a “mission trip” (not a good description, but I may never be able to fully process the trip and find words for what it actually was). We were planning to help with construction of a new classroom for the secondary school. But, for the most part, our help wasn’t really wanted (it took paying jobs away, but there was also some political weirdness).
I walked to the store today, an exercise in frustration.
Ten years or so ago our area was designated an “Urban Village.” That means that they are building like crazy, lots of new residential units that are not required to have parking…everyone is supposed to walk and use public transit.
They startedby reducing bus service. Now they are building on every corner.
Apparently we aren’t supposed to walk until they are done.
XingfuMama 