Day 11 – One Man’s Brick Is Another Man’s Wall

Content from Marc

Wednesday - 21 November

I’ve discovered I seem to have a mindset that tends to rear its ugly head when faced with work I feel I am not good at, which is, “If something important needs to be done let the more confident/skilled/competent people at it first. Failing that, then try.”

I admit, this isn’t a very good philosophy, but it is a flexible one, just with a little pushing; as was the case this past week with the brick-laying at our work site. When I first read about this build I saw mention of Cement Interlocking Blocks (CIBs) and I really looked forward to that part of the construction because CIBs were what we used on my previous build in the Philippines. There we built rows of houses in a community project, moving and laying thousands of those bricks over 2 weeks. They were familiar, and they’re like cement LEGOs that make the work so straight-forward a (strong, big-for-their-age kind of) child could do it.

When we first arrived I noticed the bricks piled by the road weren’t of the obvious CIB variety, and I had a mixed reaction. On the one hand I was disappointed, but on the other hand I was intrigued. I do enjoy learning new things so the prospect of doing a more traditional job of brick-laying did seem cool, but I wouldn’t have minded if I had the chance to reacquaint myself with those old CIB friends either.

Anyway, that was all well and good; I still looked forward to brick laying, especially after all the hard work that went into the foundation. The only problem was that something happened during that foundation-building time, something I didn’t really experience as strongly in the Philippines because it was a different kind of build; I realized that I was building a family their home. A tangible, ever-present family, who were working with us this time, on the very home they will be living in and putting their livelihood into for the … possibly rest of their lives.

The thought of this struck me while we were making the foundation, but the weight of this struck me the day we laid bricks. On our site are 2 skilled workers, and on the day we laid our first bricks one of the skilled workers gave us a quick primer: lay the mortar here, lay the brick there, line it up with the wall like this, and make sure it’s got mortar down its sides. Simple, right? He made it look that way! When I laid my first row of bricks I didn’t think it would be perfect, but I didn’t anticipate how difficult lining up a brick to a wall sitting on some mortar would be either! By the time I got through a 2^nd row and found the wall was still looking questionable, the weight started growing. Thoughts of the family having a bad wall that would later fall apart because some silly Canadian did a shoddy job started to grow, and I started to question the wisdom of letting a group of volunteers perform such a duty. We were supervised by the skilled workers, they double-checked our work, and I was told it was all going to be plastered over anyway, but it just seemed like trouble waiting to happen that I couldn’t get out of mind. Not to mention, I was incredibly slow at it too! This is when that previously mentioned mindset started to kick in. We left that day having done a few rows of bricks around the perimeter of the house, and starting the walls on the inside. I left that day with the desire to leave the brick-laying alone unless I really had to, and find whatever other tasks around the house I could.

As fate would have it, I had one task that would let me avoid it for an afternoon. I ended up helping others lay brick a bit, but the best break was when there was a septic system that needed a hole dug. A 1 meter deep hole that normally would take 2 days of digging, but our super-motivated team of Laura, Gregg, Ping (the home owner), and I did it in 1 day. While that was awesome, and it was really cool to see how the septic gets added, it left the focus back on brick-laying once again. 

By this point the scaffolds were up, the doors and window frames were in place, and people needed to trade off being up there for a break. I was spending my time spotting the scaffolders, fetching mortar, bricks, etc. Each time I was asked if I’d like to get up on the scaffold for a go, I would decline while a little voice in my head said I should. Each time I was asked my answer would become less sure, until eventually that little voice in my head won out. It finally got through to me that there’s only one way to improve at something, and that is to do it. If you don’t you inevitably get worse, and if you’re at the bottom there’s no where to go but up, right? Once I was past the threshold where I accepted that if I screwed up, it was manageable, then I was willing to do it freely. I got up on a scaffold, I got the bricks and mortar, and I started to lay it out.

Lo and behold, my first few bricks felt awkward, but by the time I got through a few I found my ability to line up the brick to the lines was improving. Passable, even! I finished off a whole row, and moved on to the next without needing the skilled workers to set up the first block for me. They diligently came by to set up the other end and made the new lines I would need, and the fact they didn’t guffaw at my work (that I could tell) meant to me that I must not have been screwing up so badly after all. Not to leave it to chance though I did ask once or twice for a skilled worker to look at my wall and the mindset started to fade when he approved of my wall.

The best though, was when I had to shorten a brick to finish off a row. I had thought I had maybe made it too short, and when I was testing its size I saw the home owner standing nearby below. I called his name, and he looked up, where I was holding the brick. I asked him, “Is this okay?” and he gave it another looked and nodded yes to me. That was when I really felt it was okay that I, the silly Canadian, was on that scaffolding to construct that man a wall. I’m not sure I would say I am proud of my walls, but I am definitely proud of our work.