Construction in Africa

By Ben Keyser

My time in Tanzania was spent working as an infrastructure volunteer on a variety of small projects and maintenance at Kesho Leo and the Volunteer Village. This ranged from maintenance to starting the foundations of the new church compost toilets adjacent to the Kesho Leo site. When I arrived I was full of enthusiasm and remember saying to Corky, Infrastructure and Permaculture Manager working from Australia, “Make the most of me while I’m here, I’m happy to help!”. I remember thinking on my second last day when I had a list close to two pages of things I still wanted to do that maybe I shouldn’t have told him that. Having said that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Enjoying a ride into Arusha Town!

Coming from an engineering background and spending some time in the construction industry I had some skills that I could offer the team working over at Kesho Leo. However I quickly learned that it would be the local workers who would teach me the most about construction in Africa and how valuable it is to work with them, rather than “Australianising” the way they do things.

One of the main projects I worked on was the hand washing stations for the Kesho Leo mamas compost toilets. When told about the project, I estimated that it would probably take a few days and that being a Wednesday, it would be done by the weekend and another thing I could tick off my list. A few weeks later the hand washing stations were finally completed, albeit after a few frustrating days and frequent broken Swahili/English conversations with Vale and Moses, the two infrastructure workers. The most satisfaction I got out of this project was getting input from Moses and Vale, and seeing their ideas come to fruition. 

Inside view of the Kesho Leo Mamas Handwashing Station

Moses makes the final touches on the  Kesho Leo Mamas Handwashing Station water tanks

Throughout my time there, I worked on a number of projects including the new compost toilets at our neighbouring Church, finishing the ‘shamba’ (farm) silo, the Kesho Leo mamas handwashing stations and completing the liquid waste gutters for the mama’s compost toilets. They all had one thing in common; they never went to plan. That’s not to say they weren’t well thought out, great ideas or implemented correctly but it is an accurate reflection of the challenges facing new projects in developing countries. Whilst I learnt a lot from  working with the local foodwatershelter employees on these projects, I also learnt that problem solving and ingenuity are key assets when thinking about construction and to accept that things not going accordingly to plan is not always a bad thing.

Setting the liquid waste gutters on the Kesho Leo mamas compost toilets

The workers are so resourceful and given a scarce amount of resources it is quite incredible to see the solutions and ideas that they come up with. I certainly learnt early on that while I could help with some organisational and bookkeeping ideas, I had very little to offer when it came to doing projects ‘their way’. For the first time in working on construction projects I got the most enjoyment out of the process, rather than seeing the final product. I can’t wait to get the opportunity to work with Moses, Vale and the infrastructure team again sometime in the future.

Mudi (Kesho Leo Manager), Vale, Moses, Roger and Myself setting the foundations for the Church Compost Toilets next door to Kesho Leo children's village