Fixing Lolo's House - Part 2, Construction Begins

With the old house now demolished and out of the way, construction can begin on the new house.

First a secure foundation needs to be laid:

Rebar will make the house sturdy

The majority of the work was done by hand.

Mixing concrete by hand

Mix that concrete!!

The "chicken coop" where Sweetie's sister and her family were living during the construction was not totally horrid, as you can see.  (In the pic is a neighbor girl.)

Lots of rebar should help make this house very sturdy.

Hooray for rebar!

We love rebar!

We quickly ran out of materials, and had to order some more.

More Gravel!

Things are going well, so far.  We just hope we don't run out of money before the house is complete!

Fixing Lolo's House - Part 1, Plans and Materials

If you remember from our previous post, Lolo's old house is now in a sad state of disrepair.

Rather than simply patch it back together, we decided the best thing to do was to tear it down, and rebuild from the ground up.  

While this will result in a better, more maintainable house, unfortunately while the construction is ongoing Sweetie's sister and her family will be forced to live in a chicken coop!  So the best thing to do is get this house build as quickly as possible!

Unfortunately, just a few days before the decision to raze the house was made, Grump got in a snit and quit his job.  (He calls it "retirement"; we just call it being temporarily unemployed.)  So, the money to fund this project is hard to come by at the moment; which means that Sweetie's sister and her family will probably have to suffer living in the chicken coop way longer than is desirable.

Sweetie paid a local guy, (a self-taught architect), to draw up some plans for the new house:

Plans for the new "Ranchero Ruperto"

If all goes well, it will be a nice looking house!

What the house will look like from the outside

Please tell me that these bananas aren't considered a "construction material"!

Legitimate construction materials arrived, such as these bags of cement, and some gravel.

Bags of cement

Gravel

Gathering on the porch before it is demolished

Construction Trucks in the background

Rebar!

Another load of Gravel arrives

Measuring for where the new home will be located.

This is an exciting project for Sweetie's family, but I feel really bad that folks have to live in the chicken coop during the construction!

Philippines May/2017 - Misc., Part 2

The last batch of pics from the May/2017 trip to the Philippines.

Still working on that pig!

Kuya walking on the raised trail at the aqua-marine park, near Ozamiz

An odd change came over Lola when she went to the Philippines ..... she would actually POSE for pictures!

Groupie!

The ocean at the aqua-marine park

Sineguelas, also called Spanish Plum.  Very Yummy!!

Sweetie eating sineguelas

In the Philippines, (and I suppose every other tropical country), people love to plant coconut trees RIGHT OUTSIDE THEIR FRONT DOOR, or along a path where everyone walks.  Whenever I express my concern that someone may get bonked by a falling coconut, they look at me like I am deranged.

Coconut Trees which oddly enough aren't right beside someone's front door

There are these weird big black worms in the Philippines.  Actually, I wasn't there so I don't really know what this was, but I've been told it was a "worm".

Coconut Trees towering over the "chicken houses"

Rain!

At the airport, waiting to board the flight home

In the airplane coming home.  (Dodong wants to stay in the Philippines!)

Whew!  What a trip!!