Five months ago we prepared a
foundation, ordered wood, and lined up builders. In partnership with the foundation John works
for, we plan to open a branch of the foundation and build a house in an under-educated area of
town. Our plan also includes moving to the location to
better enable our investment in the area for our long term goals. Unfortunately, this process has taken longer
than expected as this is not a time oriented culture as we are use to. Expectations aside, we are so thankful to be
able to announce the house frame is complete (as of Thursday, October 19th) !
It is a significant event in the Barat culture to, literally translated, stand up a house. I
imagine it is similar to a historic “Barn Raising” in the States. At the beginning of the week we were told the frame would be ready to raise on Wednesday. Right away we went shopping for the necessary ingredients to serve the traditional mung bean pudding and a meal. Tuesday the frame raising was postponed until Thursday due to additional prep work that needed to be finished. By Thursday morning everything was ready to move forward.
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| Meal Preparation |
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| white sugar being added to the Mung Bean Pudding |
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| pressing coconut milk for the pudding |
I arrived at a future neighbor's house at 6:30 Thursday morning. Most of her family was still asleep, yet she had already chopped all the vegetables. Along with one other neighbor, the three of us began preparing food and finishing the mung bean pudding. Throughout the morning other women came to help wash dishes, cook, and serve.
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| Cooking Rice |
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| The frame pieces were all arranged and stacked to be 'raised' in the appropriate order. |
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| men arriving to help |
After taking the boys to school, John and Evangeline arrived at about 7:30. Men from the community slowly began showing up as well. Shortly after eight o'clock, the loud speaker at the local religious gathering place announced the 'house raising,' encouraging others to come and help.
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| the first section goes up |
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| temporary bracing of each section |
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| Mung Bean Pudding and neighborhood ladies |
After the frame was up, all of those that came to help were served mung bean pudding. The pudding was made with mung beans, palm sugar, coconut milk, and white sugar. A small amount of men remained after the initial frame sections were up to help with some additional work. I helped the women to finish cooking lunch for the builders and these additional helpers.
It was an amazing time to see so many people come together to help us with our house. In return they received pudding! It was a humbling experience and one that demonstrated how deep the value of community is in this culture. I could not have done any of the food preparation or serving had it not been for our neighbors. It was such a wonderful experience, one in which we felt very welcomed into the area.
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| After school the boys came to see the progress and better picture what the house will be like! |
