Posted by Martin Orr on Monday, 20 August 2007 at 21:42
Blog posts and photos of the Zambian trip:
Note: I don't have any photos of my own because I didn't think it was necessary to take more with so many other people taking them, and it's a bit of an inconvenience to carry round a camera.
Posted by Martin Orr on Wednesday, 15 August 2007 at 22:23
I have just been in Zambia for two weeks. We spent ten days in the village Nkwaze building houses. We built one house from the ground to the roof, very satisfying. We also did the last third of another house, and dug foundations for 1.5 more. The houses are made from bricks made mainly of earth from termite mounds, with some cement. The machine which produces these is quite impressive - just one pull of a lever and the soft earth is compressed into a solid brick (you have to pull pretty hard though). Brick making is a very social activity, and we made enough for several houses.
The charity Habitat for Humanity provide people who direct the work and do some of the more specialised tasks. The house owners also have to provide a few hundred hours of "sweat equity" as part payment for their house, working to build other houses in the village. So we provided only a small contribution to a much larger ongoing activity, but I think we did make a significant contribution.
As well as building, we had a trip to the Victoria Falls, which were huge and impressive. Clare and I went on a walking safari, and saw giraffes, zebras, and lots of impala, and a safari by boat, where we saw hippos and crocodiles, and caught a glimpse of an elephant.
Posted by Martin Orr on Sunday, 22 July 2007 at 19:30
Since the end of June I have been in Basingstoke, Hampshire. I am working for a web development company, Sygneca. It is a small company with four employees; the Managing Director is Jon Pretty, who until June was IT Officer for TCMS (Trinity College Music Society). I have mainly been working on a project management system for internal use, and some other small projects from time to time.
I am renting a room about twelve minutes' cycle from my work (although there is a big hill in between). There is also the landlord and one other man living here. The landlord was originally an engineer, but now an executive coach; and the other man trained in telecoms. Basingstoke is full of hi-tech companies. While it had existed as a small town before that, it was mainly built in the 1960s with lots of very similar estates separated by dual carriageways.
I am coming home to Belfast on Wednesday. On Saturday I am going to Zambia with a church group to build houses with the charity Habitat for Humanity. After two weeks in Zambia, I will be back in Basingstoke for another month.