Conquering Concrete

In America concrete is an exact science. Every quantity of material is weighed exactly and mixes are specifically designed for certain jobs. When hand-mixing concrete in rural Uganda, concrete is more of an art. We initially planned to make a 1:2:4 mix of concrete with one part cement, two parts sand and four parts aggregate or gravel. However, the gravel we found was too large so we had to adjust the mix to 1:2:2. It worked out well after a bit of trial and error. We also had to compromise between the Ugandan method of making concrete with lots of water and the American method with minimal water. We ended up with a decent mix of concrete that was not too wet or too dry. Mixing the concrete and pouring it was a lot of labor. We were especially sad that Valerie and Lawrence had to leave in the middle of the day so we lost two laborers. Some local teenagers in the village helped out but everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. We did successfully finish one concrete lid! Only four more to go. We will definitely enlist more local labor to help out or bring Ivan, Mrs. Muwanika's grandson, with us everywhere.