We starting the project Tuesday 11th. It was an exciting day
and we had a great time. On the first day we dug the foundation and continued
to make bottle bricks. The bottle Bricks are made by stuffing plastic bags into
bottles. We also bought the wooden poles and gravel from a local quarries. The
saw and hammer were also purchased as we looked were to use them the following
day.
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First Day |
The second day we began to prepare the foundation by placing
hard cores on first and then cover them with the gravel. Once this was done we
started to cut the wooden posts down to size and made a framework for the
bench. The last thing we did was to get the 10 stones and arranged them on the
front and back part of the framework.
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Second Day |
The third day we started by digging for clay from around the
church property. We place piles of it on plastic tarps and began to make it
into find dust. It was necessary that the group did by hand, shovels, hammer,
wood, anything that worked. We also finished placing sticks across the posts so
that the bottles would not fall down and could be stacked on each other.
The fourth day we continued to make the clay
earth as fine and we could. As we finished we brought over sand and water to
mix into it. We had three different tarps that we used for the mixing. The way
mixed it was to use our bear feet and stomp on the earth and sand while adding
water. The resulting mixture is a mud and clay that we used to cover the bench
and give it shape. We also put this mixture into sacks that we call Earth Bags.
The most exciting part of this stage of construction was that we got the school
involved. We asked if the students could help us with the mixing of the earth
and sand. We had a great time with them. By the end all of the students wanted
to help us. It was a long day but we accomplished the most I think on that day.