Chapter 5 - Page 59 - Building A Village

more comfortable. He shifted into third, and then fourth. He accelerated to fifty and maintained that speed until he was back on the job site.

   As he pulled onto the job site, Jim noted the cement truck parked in front of the hospital foundation. The foundations for the public rest room, the hospital, and the dining room had all been dug and rebar had been erected and wired together inside the trenches. Braces held twelve-inch forms straight on all the outer walls of the trenches. Workers were lowering a trough from the truck to the trench, preparing to pour the contents of the concrete truck inside the forms.

   Along the tree line, workers continued to load trailers with undergrowth. Other workers pulled the trailers to big piles of wood and unloaded them. Front-end loaders scooped dirt from between the stakes marking the twenty-foot-wide roadbed bisecting the clearing and hauled it away.

   As the weeks went by, the front-end loaders finished digging the roadbed to a depth of a foot, and the road was filled with caliche. A water truck went back and forth, spraying the entire road. Heavy rollers packed the caliche tighter and tighter. A big rain soaked the road thoroughly. As it dried, heavy packers compressed it one last time.

   For the next two weeks, workers were allowed to drive on the caliche to help pack it tighter. Then sand was hauled in to cover the caliche. Oil was sprayed on top of the sand and left to harden. Finally, a four inch slab of asphalt was laid over the oil-soaked sand and a white, broken line was painted down the center of the pavement. All the other roads were finished at the same time.

   Jim watched as wood poles rose like skeletal frameworks for the thatched panels that formed the walls of the hospital, dining room, and church. The paneled walls could easily be loosened at the bottom and pushed out and up to be braced open. The roofs were built on top of wooden A frames and