Building in Matola

Last year, someone built a small shop for Lena (Zacarius and Gaspar’s mom) outside of her house. But she never had enough money to purchase the initial product to sale. With the help of The Vine, I am going to help her get started!

This past Saturday, 3 of the Iris youth, Ernesto, Nelson, and Manuel, went to Matola with me and we started fixing up the shop. It is very basic – walls built out of kiniso (a straw like material) with a tin roof. Some of the kiniso was missing so we did some repairs and added a new wall with a doorway. The floor was dirt and during the rainy season turns to mud so we put down a cement floor.

It was a fun adventure! We bought the cement on the way to Lena’s house but everything else we bought from a market near their house (and by near I mean about a 20 minute walk). Nelson and I walked to the market with Zacarius, Gaspar, Matilda (their sisiter) and Neto (one of their friends). We bought 3 bundles of kinisio, nails, wire, and some bread for lunch. Neighbor’s near Lena’s house sold us the other materials we needed including small rocks, dirt, and another bundle of kinisio.

The boys worked so hard and got everything done in about 4 hours. Lena was right there with them mixing cement and putting up the kiniso. All of the kids pitched in as well and went to get buckets of water to mix with the cement. I helped out as well when the boys would let me!

Here are some pictures from the day. We still need to replace some more of the kiniso, cut a window to sale from, and build a shelf for her to put the products on. So more to come!