| We worked on three buildings, with the main purpose of our trip being the construction of two of those. Click here for a photo gallery of construction before our arrival. |
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A building that was mostly finished when we arrived was the house for the Pehrsons (in the background), who are working with the translation project and doing literacy activities. We helped finish the flooring, run wires, and designed and built a solar panel rack for the roof. |
| Another building was a six room, two-story dorm for people to stay at when they come for translation or literacy workshops. It should be able to house up to 36 people, although most of the time it will be for about 20. |  |
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The first two teams did most of the foundation and flooring work, so we got to see lots of walls go up and other dramatic progress in the nearly two weeks we were there. The dorm and newly extended porch attached to the old translation office (which we used as a dorm) and porch (which they used for the translation activities because it was too hot and stuffy inside) . |
| Because the road between Aitape and Arop was damaged and closed, all the building materials had to come by boat, and then be carried the rest of the way partly by hand and partly by truck. It was a big job, and allowed many people to earn money, a lot of which will go towards school fees. Even kids helped carry stuff. |  |
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Another building was the “haus cook” (Pidgin for kitchen building) with three rooms to be used as an office/living space, women’s restroom, and food storage area, along with a covered outdoor cooking area, where the blue tarp is. |
| That's tongue and groove flooring, that sometimes fit together very well and sometimes didn't. |  |
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The walls go up on the haus cook. |
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The floor and decking are finished. |
| Studs cut and waiting to become part of walls. |  |
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Building some walls for the second floor of the dorm. |
| Laying out the joists on the second floor. |  |
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Putting the roof on the haus cook. |
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This will be a covered breezeway between the existing office and the new dorm. |
| Steve with a saw. |  |
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| Waiyambo was the contractor for the project. He's from the highlands, near Ukarumpa, SIL's headquarters in PNG. |  |
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Nick on the second floor. |
| Amos, in the yellow shirt, came with Waiyambo and also helped supervise us and the local men hired for the job. |  |
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Guys from team 4 work on flooring in the Pehrson's house. |
| The roof on the haus cook, nearly finished. |  |
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Nailing in linboom palm bark siding. |
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| The exterior was nearly done when we left. |  |
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Working on tongue and groove flooring on the second floor of the dorm. People worked from both sides and met in the middle, finishing in a day. Without the shade from the tarp, the tropical sun was unbearable after just a few minutes. |
| Walls going up on the second floor of the dorm. |  |
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| On the morning we left Arop. From left: Amos, Steve, Krysti,Bonnie and John Nystrom, Jenn, Nick, JB, Waiyambo, me, John Champ. |
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Update: John Nystrom sent some pictures of the completed buildings. A lot happened after we left, and the dorm and verandah are much bigger than I realized they would be. The picture to the right is taken from the same angle as the group shot above. |
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The completed dorm from the other end. |
This shows the new dorm, topped by solar panel rack, and covered verandah extensions which will give more space for Bible translation activities. |
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