OK, it’s been more than a day. But not much more than a week since I first posted the first picture, above. I took the second one yesterday.
Why the difference? Because, about a week ago, work began on an addition to our on-campus dormitory. (In my 5-1/2 years here, every year has included a major change on campus.) You can see where the old staircase has been torn down, where sand is being dug out to make way for the foundation, and where a temporary worker’s shack has been built off to the left.
The end product is to be three stories tall, with the bottom floor left open for now, and the dorm parent apartment and students’ rooms on the top two, enclosed floors. After we’ve saved money for a few years by not renting as much dorm space off campus, we may enclose the bottom floor for a staff apartment.
This is how the work is being done.
No backhoes, earth-movers or other heavy equipment is anywhere to be seen. Everything is by manual labor. To bend re-bar, they use a simple contraption in which the stump of one of the trees dug up last week is used as the counterweight.
As the building goes up, perhaps I’ll be able to take video of teams of men shoveling wet cement, in unison, up to the next floor while singing a work song to keep the rhythm going. Does that sound like another century? No, just a part of the world where relatively few manual labor jobs have been surrendered to technology, unemployment is high, and labor is cheap.
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