So, how do you make a house out of dirt?

The community of Tacllapampa gave us a lot to build a house on. This village is in the center of the area that most of the believers and interested folks live in. It is about a 30 min drive or 2 hour walk from Velille. It seems likely to me that there will be stable church there before there is here in Velille. So we want to be more involved in the area. We are not planning to live there on a regular basis at this point, but we do have a few hopes for this house. We would like to see a couple, family, or several young men teaching English and Bible in the school of Tacllapampa, and this would be their house. We would like to be able to spend time in this area as a family, and be able to spend the night sometimes. We hope to "get away" from normal life here as a family once in a while, and camp out in our "cabin." In itself, building a house seemed like a good way to conect more with this community, and indeed it has already been opening up doors with folks out there, that we haven't had contact with before. Lord willing, we hope to start having regular services in the area soon.

Here we are, digging out for our house, then you make mud out of the dirt and make your adobes from that. How's that for resourceful?

They always said I wouldn't get anywhere in life by playing in the mud, but they were wrong!

You need to scatter straw on top of the mud, then get in and stomp around a while to mix it well. In the background here, you can see the main part of the town of Tacllapampa.

After mixing the mud well, you carry it to where you are making the adobes, make a big round ball of it, squish it into the mold and then slide the mold off. A week later, you stand them up on their side to dry better, and a week later, you carry them a little way and stack them up. Each one weighs about 40 lb. Brother Daniel has the lot right next to mine, here we made made adobes on his lot, as it is flatter than mine.

I needed to get my trici-cart out to our little town of Tacllapampa to haul adobes and water for building. I tried several days to get it taken out by a truck, but it didn't work out, so I improvised. I hooked it up to the motorbike. It only flipped once on the 14 K (9m) trip.

No one else strings lines, but I thought it would be worth it to have straight walls and a square house.

My construction instructer from college should be impresed. To level for the foundation and walls, we use a clear garden hose, filled with water. Both ends must stay open, and the water level is the same at both ends.

Here I am laying the first block.

I wanted to take my time to get the corners up correctly, before others help me raise the walls next week.

Lots of good community interaction at the worksight. We do work days here using the traditional "Ayni" concept. Different ones help me one day, and then I help them another day.

Here we got to see one of the most brilliant rainbows we have ever seen, as we waited in hope for a vehicle to take us home. Some times there are, and sometimes they are late, and sometimes there aren't. On the left of the pole on the left, halfway up the hill, you can see the dirt dug up on our lot.