First Bunk Complete!

April 23, 2017

Today feels great because of four things:

1. We finished the first bed!
2. Electricity finally came back (After over 72 hours) - When we opened the fridge, there were a lot of flies!! Had to throw most of the food away.  The green beans which I wanted to cook for Chinese dinner were molded.
3. I finally made the long-awaited Chinese Dinner
4. I am getting African Braids tomorrow! Helen helped me buy some fake hair and beads so I will be ready for braiding tomorrow.

We finally assembled one of the bed bunk completely… Viola!!

Glue and nailing the 2x2s onto inside of the bed frame. This 2x2 will support all the slats. 

The slats

These are finshing varnishes which had been
applied to the slats

what the bed looks like before slats are put on

Putting on the slats

Horray!

Horray x2!

Cooking Chinese dinner for the family to try

Corn soup and fried noodles

Wooden beads to put in my braid. These are so pretty! 

Fake hair. Helen got 7 of these. All of them are going on my head!

Rabbit Cut

April 22, 2017

Power is still not back. They finally called an electrician (good thing he works on Saturday) to take a look.  There seemed to be a wiring problem.  He took a while to fix. Power went back on for a couple hours, but it was gone again by night after the electrician left!  (when it started raining)

Today’s work was mostly rabbit-cutting the bed slates.  It took a while because the jigs for the vertical cut takes forever to set up.  I have to use a lot of clamps, and check with a spirit level for every cut. While I was doing this, William was sanding the finished pieces so they can be ready for the first coat of sanding sealer.

For each cut: requires three jigs and takes super long to set up. This is the vertical cut. I set the blade to 2" deep for this cut

Setup for making the horizontal cut of the rabbit cut.
The blade depth is set to 3/4" for this cut

William Sanding the finished slats

The finished slats

We glued and nailed everything together, and brushed on the first coat (sand sealer mixed with paint thinner - about 50/50).  This finishing process was advised by the carpenter (who did the kitchen cabinet at William’s house).  He said if we do this we won’t need to soak the wood in ant treatment. The sand sealer will seal the wood.

1. First coat —> Sand sealer mixed with paint thinner
2. Second coat —> Shellac
3. Third coat —> Clear coat varnish 

I’m so excited to get some African Braids done!!  Helen has beautiful braided hair and I wanted one similar.  While I was cooking Chinese food for dinner, they went out to get some fake hair (extension to the braids) and beads for me.  This whole thing was $500 shillings- Pretty cheap :D  I told Helen I wanted wooden beads if they had some, and she found these beautiful ones (she said she had to go to three stores to find them!)

The power has been out since night of April 19. When we opened the fridge today there was lots of flies!! Yuck!  We had to throw many food away, judging by Helen’s nose (The smell test).  The veggies that I bought for cooking gone bad too :( and the green beans were molded.  Good thing I had asked Helen to take the frozen beef for me.  She’s kept those fresh at her house so I could still cook my main dish. （滷肉飯）

I finished the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.  Wish I’d brought another book - it’s kept me company at night.  Maybe I’ll draw more instead.

Second Bed Frame!

April 21, 2017

Today we had guests over.  It’s William’s grandmother’s friend, who William’s dad views almost like his own mother.  She is over 100 years but still can do pretty much everything, except her eyes can no longer see.  She was with three other ladies who guided her.

The guest brought a chicken in a plastic bag as gift!! I thought this was so funny. This poor chicken. Now we have four chicken and one rooster total! The king now have many concubines. Jacinta (the house helper) made a lot of food - including my favorite - “Chapati”. It’s interesting to see how she makes it.  It’s very similar to Indian Roti. William made steamed chicken for the guests. It was quite good.

Chicken in a plastic bag as a gift

Jacinta making Chapati

Each one will be rolled and then flatten by rolling pin

Chapati in progress

William steamed these chicken for lunch.
They are sitting on two coke cans

Helen is cooking ugali

Helen posing for my camera

Electricity is out the whole day.  Good thing we had the solar panel so we could still use the power tools.  We are finally splitting the 2x4 to 2x2s today!  Here is the jig we built in order to do this (since we did not have a table saw).  Basically, the circular saw would sit in the same place, and you’d push the wood through along the fence to cut. It’s basically like an upside-down table saw. I'm so happy that it actually worked! And... now we have the second bed frame complete!

We also planted some seeds in a grow bed. This is for the aquaponics farm. It might be easier for the plants to grow in a grow bed first with soil, then we will transfer them into the rocks on the aquaponics grow bed.

What it looks like from the other side

Splitting the 2x4

So happy to finish the second bed frame

It's a nice picture frame

The Chicken is walking thru the frame

Planting seeds in grow bed. Seeds were soaked in water for one day before planting

Getting Supplies

April 20, 2017

What a productive day today! It went like this:

1. I woke up early this morning (7am) so I started painting some plain air watercolor
2. Did a little bit of work in the shop (cutting the bed slats)
3. We drove to Kisumu to get wood finishes (and some other supplies)
4. We went by a small Masai Market to buy some souvenirs
5. Since we are in Kisumu and there is Nakumatt (There’s none in Maseno, only Kisumu), I was finally able to buy some grocery to make Chinese food for the family!
6. Last stop was the farmer's market. William's uncle bought two chickens here.

Here are the photos in chronological order:

Backyard Watercolor

This is what I was painting

Using my jig to make a 1/4" deep cut

Then, off to Kisumu! First stop was the woodworking supply shop.  We needed wood glue, clear varnish, sanding sealer, clamps and a piece of 1/4" MDF.  William's dad dropped us off here while he went to do other errands.  They had clamps but weren't the quick-grip ones (and they were expensive!), they also only had 3/4" MDF and sold by like 8 foot which was too big.

These were the ones they had, which takes forever to tighten

I didn't take pictures here, because it didn't feel safe.  There were a lot of people on the street, and they were looking at me, some of them shouted "hey China!" and some try to speak Chinese to me, while others tried to stop us and one of them I think tried to grab me.  We tried to get on a motorcycle as soon as we could (here there are a lot of motorcycle taxis).  It was quite fun. I always like riding on motorcycles.  We didn't have helmets on so thank god we didn't fall (haha). I enjoyed the wind passing by me.  The next stop is Kisumu's Masai market.  The sellers were all shouting and directing us to go to their stores, but the overall experience was a lot better than the Masai market in Nairobi.  The sellers were persistent, but not as aggressive or trying to trick you.

Corner inside one of the shops. All the products were handmade by wood or soapstone and painted by hand.

After I got some souvenirs from here, we took another motorcycle taxi to Nakumatt to meet up with William's dad.  I got groceries here to make Chinese food for the family.  Our last stop was so interesting, it was a farmer's market.  William's uncle (Federick) bought two live chickens here, they will raise the chickens at home to make eggs.  One chicken cost 600 shillings ($6 USD).  The shop owner would pick up a chicken from the cage, Federick would take it, and then said "This one is not good, give me another".  I asked him how to select, he said by weight, and the look of their feather. If the feathers are patchy or falling off it's no good.  The heavier their weight, the better.

To use, you just cut a piece from the long bar.
This bar looks like it will last a while.

They sell soap by long bars. These can be used for laundry or dirty dishes

They use a manual weight to measure the onions

This is where we bought the live chickens

William's uncle with the chickens

LOL! can you spot the chicken?
They were really quiet and calm in the car. 

The kids were treating the ice cream truck like a playground

When we got home it was dark, so we glued/nailed some pieces with flashlight.  It's called dedication. Good thing no one nailed their thumb in the dark.  

First assembly done with flashlight

Sawdust Glue

April 19, 2017

We finished planing all the pieces except the ladders of the bed.  For this, six pieces of 2x4x40” are needed. 

Next, finished gluing the last two jigs.  There’s not enough clamps, so we improvised by putting a brick on top. There goes an abstract piece of art.

Taking turns posing for our contemporary artwork 

Someone was here to fix the wifi today.  He said the antenna is broken by the rain+wind and that it needs to be replaced.  It costs about $100 USD so William didn’t want to replace it.  I think they will try to tape it together.  So.. still no wifi.  I've been using my cell phone as a hot spot, but the data is really unstable and often disconnects.

Here's what we had for lunch

After lunch, we planed more pieces and now all the 37 pieces are FINALLY done! Time to think of assembly and finishing.  William called his carpenter (the one who did their kitchen cabinets) to see if we can buy shellac here.  The carpenter said we don’t actually need to buy the ant treatment liquid, we just have to buy thinner mixed with a thick wood sealing agent, then shellac it.  Lastly, a clear coat all be brushed on top.  This will seal the wood and make sure no ants will go in.  BUT, before we do all this, we have to sand the surface first.  

There were several cracks on the pieces we had, so I mixed saw dust with wood glue and applied them into the cracks.  William is keeping the rest of the saw dust, it's a good bed for the chickens to rest and lay eggs.  Helen took some of them for the chickens at her house as well.

using a nail to apply the glue in cracks