Fun in Kisumu

Project Complete!!

April 27, 2017

Today we tried assembling the bed together!! It was so satisfying to see everything coming together. We are waiting on William to get more paint thinner so we can start coating the bed legs. Since the prototype is finished, William will hire more youths to make 180 of these beds. He plan to hire four at first to make a team, and see how the process goes. Later on if everything goes well, he might hire more. I think Jackton will be a great leader to train others. He is smart, attentive to details and also had experience in metal work. Woodworking feels less daunting to him. He also seems to get into it and focus well. I can see he was quite happy to see the bed coming together! If project can help youths here feel empowerment, and give job opportunity that deter them from engaging in risky business, then it makes all the work all worth it.

I taught Jackton how to make the rabbit cut on the slates. First the vertical cut using two jigs and a spirit level. Second the horizontal cut using the cross bar jig. He seemed to enjoy this! He’s also getting quite comfortable with the circular saw. He is a fast learner. One of our 90 degree jig was broken, I gave him the task to try and make one just by himself. He accepted the challenge and made a very sturdy one!! I can see he was quite proud of the end result and I was very happy for him. When you learn how to make things and see the actual end result (which you didn’t know you could make) - it feels very empowering.

There is three days left until I leave to Nairobi to catch my flight. I am so happy we finished the bed and I still have a few days to relax and hopefully do some sightseeing!

Showing Jackton how to set up the jig

Jackton measuring the blade depth

Jackton making his first cut

Success!

Now Jackton is a rabbit cut master

Gallery of all the jigs we had to make in order to make this bed

Final Varnish on the legs

Jackton jailed behind bars

Testing out the final assembly

It's happening! First bunk added

Second bunk added

It's a bed!!!

Final Assembly done... Viola!!

These were all laid by the four chickens!
They've been working hard too, just like us.

Checking the aquaponics farm. Not all the spinaches survived,
but the strong ones did

A view of the whole house (as it looks from the aquaponics farm)

Jackton

April 26, 2017

We will be putting the legs together today. Helen came this morning to say goodbye. She is heading to another town to begin school term again (she is becoming a teacher) She wore a beautiful dress! It matches with the bracelet I gave to her as a gift ;) It was a bracelet I got from the Kisumu Masai Market. I will miss her.

And... we finally hired the first youth! The point of this bunk bed project was to create job opportunities for youth. In the city of Kissie, a lot of youths who are in financial difficulties (in college or drop out of college) take risky jobs to make money (a lot of girls sell themselves on the street). This project aims to help these youths in getting jobs where they can get paid, also learn how about woodworking and how to build stuff.

Jackton is 22 yeras old. Today, I taught him how to use the circular saw with the 90 degree jig, how to adjust blade height, and made sure he puts on all safety gears (Also to unplug saw when adjusting blade height). He was wearing sandals today so we told him he’ll have to wear shoes next time, to be safe.

We are done pretty much everything!!

The chickens like to wonder around in the shop. Maybe it likes to be where the people are. We thought this was okay until they pooped on one of our pieces! (which had shellac on) We cleaned the piece and no longer allow them to freely walk around

The shop

Drilling holes on the bed leg, so we can nail the pieces together

Assembling the legs together. The cross bars are ladder for the bed

Most pieces are now on their third coat (clear varnish)

Second Bunk Assembly

April 25, 2017

What I really miss is music (cuz I use youtube to listen to music) and ice cream (which is weird, I don’t usually even eat ice cream that much).

This morning was making all rabbit cuts on slats for the second bunk. The whole thing took about 4 hours. Here's how the process looks:

FIRST CUT: Clamp down the slat vertically to three jigs. One on bottom, one to the left, one to the right. Use a spirit level to make sure the surface we are cutting on is levelled horizontally and vertically. Set blade depth to 2 inches and cut. Repeat this cut on the opposite end of this slat.
SECOND CUT: Clamp down the slat horizontally to the jig. Set blade depth to 3/4 inches and cut. Save this off-cut for later use as spacers for the slats. Repeat this cut on the opposite end.

Setting up for first cut

What it looks like after it's been cut

Setup for the second cut

Second cut complete

I thought I might as well explain the process of how we make a perpendicular cut using the circular saw. It goes like this:

First you draw a cut line
Set the 90 degree jig 1.5 inches to the right of the cut line
Clamp the jig to your wood. Clamp the wood to the table.
Make the cut, guiding the saw along the jig (which acts as a fence)

First you draw a cut-line and set the 90 degree jig 1.5 inches to the right

The red line is the cut line

For the first bunk, we put on the second coat - Shellac. For the second bunk, we finally assembled it too!

Tomorrow we will put first coat of sand sealer on, and assemble the bed legs. The chicken laid an egg in the box of saw dust!

Putting Shellac

Both bunks

Gluing and nailing spacers between the slats

Nailing the spacers

African Braids

April 24, 2017

Hahaha I only worked like two hours today… and the rest was… sitting on the chair doing this!!

It started around 11:30am, and we didn’t finish until 6pm!! Well we took break for lunch, but still. I was bored sitting there and playing the same games on my phone for six hours.

I think I fully blend in now.

The hairdo cost $12… that is crazy considering this is almost minimum wage in US. For 6 hours… it’s difficult to earn money here. I asked William what the minimum wage is here. He said its $2.50 USD... A DAY! Not an hour.