Gifting Africa: MICHAEL - GIFTING AFRICA in Livingstone, Zambia

Having been in charge of project development, constructing and building in Germany for half of my life, I now took the opportunity to get myself voluntarily involved in building houses in Livingstone, Zambia.

The biggest difference for me is working without any machines. If you need tons and tons of concrete you don´t just order a few mix-trucks and a pump...no!

For a 8x8 meter concrete slab you take 8 workers with shovels and spades, 12 bags of cement, 3 wheelbarrows of stones and six with sand. Eventually all the ingredients are mixed “by hand” and the slab is ready after two hours. And we already covered a surface of 500 square meters. It´s incredible to see and even more to do it yourself! After I had the crazy idea of mixing concrete myself I applied approximately 5 layers of Voltaren creme to ease my pain...but you can get used to it..it´s kind of a workout...

I also had to get used to the right interpretation of building specific terms. When the carpenter comes to me and says “We have a little bit of a shortage of 6 inch nails” it means: There´s absolutely nothing left!

In the meantime Lynette is busy getting all the permissions necessary for building a school in the neighbour village. The project is initiated and supported by Waterberry Zambezi Lodge.

Lynette is going to tell the details via the blog now now.

Yesterday evening we saw the Lunar Rainbow the second time we´re here. After discovering that some of the staff working at Waterberry Lodge had never had the chance to see the falls before even though they´ve lived here their whole life, we took the evening´s kitchen team, Josephine, Matthews and Given, with us. Very funny to see them getting wet! Next time we take another group...

Our today´s afternoon task is going to the village, equipped with GPS, a two pound hammer, some sticks and all our creative imagination to survey the plot where the new school is supposed to be built...