Construction Nigeria Style

These five men are standing in a trench dug by hand. The two with their feet up are resting their feet on a slab of concrete. The concrete had to be removed to allow the trench to be dug. Three of these men worked for the better part of 3 days to beat through the concrete. They used a small sledge hammer with a handle the length of a normal hammer. There was no Jack Hammer. There were no power tools of any kind. There was not even a normal sized 10, 12 or 14 lb. sledge hammer with a long handle. They just beat on the concrete for 3 days by hand with the little sledge. Everything except the mixing of concrete (that is done in an old style tub mixer on site) has been done by hand. The picture on the left is one of the workers with a 5 gallon bucket full of water on his head. All of the water for the project is hauled this way from the LDS Service Center, right next door. That's how everything is moved. The material goes into a bucket or big "pan", up on the head it goes and then to the appropriate floor and room in the building where the material will be used. There are dozens of men on this one project all the time. The trench is now full of a concrete footing with re-bar in it. On top of the footing is a concrete block wall that will rise to 8' or more. The block wall will be surfaced smooth with plaster or stucco. When you show up with a camera to "snap" a picture, everyone around wants to get in the picture. That's why the 5 men in the picture, instead of just the 3 who beat the concrete and then dug the trench. I have had a great time getting to know some of the construction workers and having them explain the things they are doing. This short length of wall is part of the Compound Wall for the new Mission Center Compound. It is moving very fast, compared to what we have observed for the past 3 months. Everything was always moving quite quickly, for African standards. It just didn't look like it to us.

The flat, whitish wall behind them is part of the wall of the Mission Center Compound Guard building. There is a small building inside the gates of most compounds for the guards. By African Standards, this Mission Center Building and Compound are quite substantial. Both the Lagos East Mission and the Lagos West Missions will have their offices in this building. There are two very nice 4 bedroom suites for the two mission presidents and 4 small apartments for Senior Couples. We are the only Senior Couple for the foreseeable future. Maybe one of the small apartments can become an exercise room. That would be nice!