Friday, October 3, 2014

GROUND BREAKING NEWS!

I apologize for the long delays in getting this latest post out! Although things have been quiet in the cyber world, they have been very exciting in the REAL world!  There are so many amazing updates, I don't know where to begin!

For anyone that has followed along with us over the years, you know very well that we've had obstacle after obstacle placed in our path but we always found a way to keep moving forward.  Sometimes it meant climbing over, around or under.  Sometimes it meant creating a whole new path.  Through it all, we never gave up and we never allowed ourselves to believe that Hero Home wouldn't happen.  Thanks to Tabitha's endless determination and dedication, Hero Home is turning into a reality right before our eyes.


When I left Hero Home at the end of October of last year, we had cleared a temporary field to provide a space for kids to come and play. Since then, Tabitha has been going non-stop.   In May, she officially packed up everything in Mwanza and moved out to the land.  She is living in a neighbouring town and commutes to the site everyday to oversee construction.  In early June, the workers broke ground on the house!  They dug the outlines of all the rooms and then began filling it in with rocks and sand.  Keep in mind, these rocks are essentially made by hand.  They started with these massive boulders that were in the ground and through sheer force, they break them into smaller boulders and from there, break them into rocks and even gravel. It's an unbelievable process!
 Check out the boulders on the right hand side.  
That's what gets broken down into useable rocks.

 There are the piles of rocks they are using for the foundation.
There are the rocks ready to become the foundation of the Hero Home house.

 The rocks turn into a foundation
The nearly completed foundation!
So, once they got the boulders the right size, they began laying the foundation.  It's incredibly hard work in incredibly hot conditions! However, they've done an amazing job and it looks fantastic!  While the foundation was going in, they were also making by hand, thousands and thousands of the clay bricks for the walls.  
 Here they are drying the handmade bricks in a make-shift kiln.

 Here is some of the many bricks needed for the walls.

Things are going great on site.  As soon as the house is done, Tabitha will be able to live on site and get the next phases of the project happening! It's definitely taken us longer than we hoped, but it is so exciting and encouraging to actually see it all come together! The next steps are going to be incredibly exciting!  I'll keep you all posted.

As for me, I've been in Winnipeg since last October so I have no dramatic tales of life-threatening sicknesses, robberies or anything too exciting to share with you.  I've been working hard on the fundraising and administrative side of GO!.  We have lots of exciting thing coming your way in the next few months so definitely check back soon!

Thanks again for all your support along the way! We couldn't be here with you! :)