SNIPERS!

We chose the name Snipers because we wanted to be an accurate, skilled, high-performing build team. We have John and Maurice from the local parish as Kenyan construction assistants, David and Morris who are students at the school for the Deaf and Chris from the UK as a UK volunteer. Despite having four major languages in our group (English, Kikuyu, Kenyan Sign Language and Swahili) we gel extremely well as group and get so much done. Here is an insight into our first two weeks at ACK St Mary Magdalene’s School for the Deaf during the summer construction period... Maybe this will illustrate what it's like to be working on site here.

There are 39 volunteers helping with construction on site, a third from the UK, a third are youths from the local parish and a third are students and staff from the school.  On the first day of construction we were split into 7 mixed teams with members from each respective group. Our team was allocated the task of uprooting a mango tree to make sure that the roots didn’t eventually destabilise the new dorm being built nearby. This was hefty work and involved digging around the tree for the roots, chopping the roots with pangas and jembes (English: maschettis and hoes) and see-sawing the tree out of the deep hole gradually shouting our name in glory with every heave “Snipers! ...1, 2, 3... Snipers!”


Chris emerged to be the team manager and John the team time-keeper. The team manager ensures that everyone knows what they’re doing and why and the time-keeper is responsible for the whole build site taking tea break and lunch on time so that work continues on time.

Left to right: John and Chris

We were seen to be a strong team by the site manager and were next asked to construct a tool store, one of the more skilled jobs on site.
We launched into this project head first and made the pillaring and first wall in no time, despite the fact that none of us had made a tool shed before. But when the site manager came to check our work, the measurements of the wall were not right. As accurate snipers we were temporarily disappointed but our team spirit pushed us through and we fixed the problem with some simple adjustments. As we worked better and better as a cohesive team our speed of work picked up and we were able to make the store in three days.

Now we are laying bricks putting up the new girls’ dorm and have been learning best practice from the mason as we go.

We must work well and keep our motivation high together. We must eventually finish the magnificent school and feel proud that we have used our combined skills and all of our energy to make valuable contributions to this movement!
SNIPERS!!!