Bathrooms for the NUFED School

Last week we began the construction project at the NUFED School. The project in its entirety will be quite a bit more extensive, but we are beginning with the student bathrooms. Here are Henri (Nufed teacher), Sebastian (contractor), Julian Mayen (President Parents Committee) and another teacher from the school, in front of the present bathrooms. As can be noted, there are only two bathrooms with doors (those two have toilets inside) and although those two toilets are drained to a septic tank, there is no running water so water for flushing has to be carried by bucket from the water source several meters away. There are also no sinks for hand washing. The plan is to construct a cement wall in front of the present structure and a dividing wall in the middle between the 4 bathrooms (creating a boys side and a girls side), with doors on either end that can be locked. The building will be properly plumbed (water in and waste out) and 4 toilets and 2 sinks installed.

By last Monday morning, the basic materials … cement block, sand and gravel (and cement that is not pictured) had been delivered and the project was ready to begin.

Since this is a technical school, the plan is to teach a mini-course in several aspects of construction … primarily plumbing, block/cement work and painting. About 35 students from all 3 grades (7, 8 and 9) have opted to take this mini-course. The construction project began with a class given by Don Sebastian in how to do an estimate for a job.

It was decided that 7 students would participate each day in the actual construction. Immediately the young men were directed to the smashing digging door removal type jobs …

and the young women to cleaning the old toilets.

I pointed out to those in charge that this might be a bit of gendrification … they agreed, calling it “machismo” … and before I knew it, the labor jobs were more equally dispersed.