Work in progress

The carpenter with a desktop in progress.

Today on the way home from school, Deo and I stopped by the workshop of the carpenter that is making the furniture for the school from the donated funds that I collected in Canada. He’s a very nice man and very trusted by Deo for his good work (he made all the desks that the school currently uses), and from what I saw today, with good reason. Work seems to be progressing well. When we arrived today, we saw the cut and planed desktops in production. It looked like they had completed a good 6 or 7 and would likely have the rest done by tomorrow. They still have to varnish them all and cut the rest of the stool portions of the desks.

After grabbing some quick photos, he led us down the street to another craftsman’s shop where the iron frames of the desks were being put together. Here, the structures are all complete and welded together and one of the craftsmen was just applying a coat of red anti-rust paint. Tomorrow, they will finish the job with a coat of black paint. The craftsmen’s goal is to have the desks and 6 small bookshelves (one for each classroom) ready by next week, at which point they will start to work on the larger tables, chairs and shelves for the staffroom.

And as further note on yesterday’s photo of the woman carrying the wood on her head, today on the walk home I saw a woman walking with a 20L bucket full of water on her head! What weight! I could tell it was full because I could just see the top edge and the water leaping up with the back and forth motion of her stride (though she wasn’t losing a drop!) Again, amazing. 20L of water is about 20kg – it’s like walking around with a curling rock on top of your head, and yet they seem to do it so effortlessly. We also passed a wiry grade 4 boy carrying a 20kg bag of rice slung over his back. We sure have it easy in Canada.

As much as I want to take photos of all of this stuff, it’s really difficult. People don’t really appreciate it here, and I suppose it’s not hard to understand why. They see a rich white guy taking photos of their destitution and difficult lives. It can’t make anyone feel very good. I try to snap a few when I can be discreet, but they’re usually hasty ones. What a luxury it is for us to be able to snap photos of the poverty of others just to show friends at home. I think that it’s good to do so when it’s possible, because the photos also have the opportunity to educate, but I’m not able to at the expense of another’s feelings.