Week 2...

This week was another long and hot session out in the field. We spent the first three days finishing the structural elements of our house and the two on either side. Another post will be added explaining the process, so you will better understand what it is we actually did.

Luis came and visited the site on Wednesday and we had a chat with him about some ways he could reduce waste and save money. He had asked us to come up with ideas and we shared some of them. Each house is designed to utilize as few foam panels as possible. For example, each window cut-out can be used for the bottom portion of the next window. As it is, however, the guys are using full panels for every window and discarding the cut-out. If this continues, the project will run out of panels and Luis will take on extra costs to buy more and recycle the waste.

We have asked to build a structure completely on our own, which we will do next week. This way, we can identify exactly how many and what lengths of each element we need for each house. Instead of dumping a pile of materials in front of each house, the crews can now place exactly the amount needed and they must use the panels as the plans show. We realize that the main obstacle to this is supervision. Each man works at his own pace and with his own ideas, so there is no unification, therefore more waste. If we can figure this out, Luis will place someone to be in charge to make sure every house is meeting the specifications.

We also monitored the amount of cement used to cover an individual house, and we found the average of three houses. Doing so will allow Luis to know the amount of cement bags used for each house and the time it takes to coat each one. This experiment has a little more consistency because the spraying crew is the same for each house. Aldo came up with a  great way to keep the results consistent: Betting. He had the crew foreman bet against Elvin how many bags it would take per house. From now on, he will have an idea of how much to use and he won't just add bags unnecessarily. Once again, a little supervision can lead to more efficient results. (Another point... when we interact with the guys and show interest in what they are doing, they perform better and are more motivated to do the work... Hawthorne Effect, anyone?)

Aldo with the projection crew

On Thursday we loaded up with Elvin and headed to Cayacoa, a small sugar town about 20 minutes away from our site. There is another community built with foam, this one complete with a church, school, community center, and even a hospital! Several of the houses were left unfinished and I think our crew is going to come in and finish them. It was neat to see a new layout of the houses (these had courtyards, separate bathroom facilities, and bunk beds built into the walls.) Elvin pointed out that they lack the proper structural elements, however, so if we do come in most of the work will have to be re-accomplished.

Cayacoa foam houses

Cayacoa school, made of foam

No beach this week because there were some lightning storms in the area. Some of the other dangers we encountered were black widows, HUMONGOUS sinkholes (seriously, two full size sedans could fit in one we found, and new ones keep popping up...), and the fact that we were standing in the back of a truck barreling down the freeway at 70 MPH. We spent our nights hitting the sack pretty early, falling asleep to El Senor do los Amillos (Lord of the Rings).  

Our room (finally with mosquito nets!)

P.S. On our trip back to Santo Domingo we were in a gua-gua that at one point had 25 people in the minivan!!!