A Huge Task

The congregation of the Jacquet church had a big job on their hands in April--the pouring of a roof on their new church building!  Pouring the roof is one of the last tasks of the Jacquet construction as the columns, beams and infill blocks had already been finished.  In order to complete this huge task, several important steps had to be taken: First, 4' x 8' sheets of plywood had to be set in place on top of metal jacks to hold the massive weight of the cement roof slab.  After that, several tons of rebar needed to be cut, dressed and tied into the rebar from the columns and beams.  Later this reinforcing rebar would be submerged within the poured concrete slab.  This is a difficult task as the blazing tropical sun quickly warms the rebar to a temperature that can burn exposed hands immediately.  Next, a massive amount of gravel and sand had to be delivered to the construction site.  At one point, the dump-trucks were queuing up in the quiet Jacquet neighborhood one after the other.  Finally, you need a massive team of willing and able laborers to operate the two cement mixers, carry water, gravel and sand to mix concrete, pass buckets of liquid concrete up a ladder to the roof and all the way to the back of the building where the concrete was being poured.  After that, a huge team of cooks assembled to make food for the nearly one hundred volunteers and other laborers.  Finally, a team of masons was on the roof raking the new poured concrete to make sure it was setting correctly.  The Jacquet church began at five a.m. and finished at 2 p.m., tired but happy to have achieved so much.