Day One and we arrive on site at 7.45am for the work to begin. Our homeowner is Nokawe, and with her husband and daughters Anita and Mihele, have moved into the shack of their neighbour (you can see behind) for a few weeks.  We thought their own shack had been demolished, and then learnt that in fact these were taken down and resold to families to improve their shacks!  There is a solid concrete base of either 42, 45 or 50 square metres, ready to start building a house on, and a huge pile of blocks.

 

We meet our team!, Eric the crewleader, Pumsile our builder, Meg, Keith, Lisa, Alice, David, Louise, Gary, Helen, Ann and Debbie…. None of us are too sure what to expect and we start mixing up cement (dugha) and building the external walls!  It is hard but satisfying work, and we were only working for an hour before we were stopped for tea and doughnuts!!!  We make good progress and with a lot of help from other friends and neighbours built 8 courses on two sides of the house.