Week Eight: Mayo Building Workshop hosted by Mayo Women’s Association – ‘Dalu for Development’

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New work boots, lots of rain, Saturday shopping for equipment, and a distinguished visitor graced week eight of the workshop.  

The windows, stairs, and door taking shape while the class works in teams

Tres Amigos

Adam and Doc spent Sunday afternoon  at the Saria Factory on street 41 looking for a pair of safety boots for each and every team-mate.  This was followed by a trip to Souk Ashaabi close by to get socks. It was a bit like Christmas when we arrived back at the site with the packages. However, as half the class had given us the wrong shoe size, we had to go back the next day to get different sizes and also make another trip to Souk Sagana for barbed wire.

Abeer working hard with some new boots

Souk Sagana near the barbed wire shop

Sporting some nice new boots

Engineer Mujtaba working the details

Some smaller shoes for the women

Abubaker, Amjed, Rihab, Abeer, Mohammed Issa, and Bushara hang out on top of the dome

Engineer Mubarak is pensive

Our amazing ARC Peace architect Najlaa - without whom we could not have done the project

Raha takes some really nice pictures with Doc's camera

Imam Ahmed Al Mahdi surprised the team with a visit on Tuesday afternoon, just missing prayers, but spending time meeting the team and enticing them with promises of a BBQ on his farm when the dome is finished. 

Team poses with Imam Ahmed Al Mahdi

Imam Ahmed chats with Ustaz Hooman about the dome

Engineer Mubarak answers some questions from the Imam while Ustaz Hooman and Raha look
at pictures - Lila looks on

On Wednesday, God declared a holiday as it rained so hard that the entire city was flooded and no one could get anywhere.  Najlaa and folks on the site took flood pictures and shared with us. We had to skip business class as well.

God declared a holiday on Wednesday with a flood - the domes stood firm

 Thursday we were back hard at work.  The ladies of Mayo arranged a ‘going away’ Sudanese coffee for Raha since she and Hooman are leaving us next week and it will be the Eid holiday.  Lila and Fatima amazed us with their drum rhythms on the wooden coffee mortar and pestle along with a little singing. 

Lila roasts the coffee while Fatima prepares to grind the cooked beans

Abeer and Rihab pose with Lila at the coffee

The ladies dress Doc up in a shiny tobe and all of us pose together for Raha at Lila's house

Abeer poses in the shiny tobe

Raha filming the coffee

After work Raha went to hang out with the ladies and get some henna decorations, but much of the days she is filming for a documentary - and some days spends a lot of time using time lapse photography on top of the cistern.

Aaron takes a picture of Raha perched on the cistern taking time lapse

Hooman showed a final power point presentation of some of the fine-tuning of dome designs and techniques with examples from Chad, Darfur, and Sierra Leone. He kept the class riveted with great stories from his work in Africa and the Middle East. The domes are truly beautiful and we can’t wait to see what the team will come up with on their own in Mayo and Darfur. We are confident that amazing designs will come out of the training. The material can fashion into water reservoirs, sinks, lights, benches, domes, clinics, luxury houses, and single dome houses.

Ustaz Hooman presents his final power point to the class showing
some great earth bag creations he has done around the world

Saturday Doc and Adam attended the funeral for Dr. Abdalla’s only son. Grief beyond measure is shared by the TEPS team and ours.

The kindergarten kids hang out on the compound and remind us of a brighter future