Chet's comments about the Trade School

January 15, 2008

The following are some observations about the Carpentry and Joinery Department of the Namitembo Trade School. The building that houses this department is wired for electricity but the electricity has yet to be turned on, so all wood working operations are performed entirely by hand – just amazing what the students have been able to accomplish. For example, last year’s project consisted of a demonstration of joints to create a window frame. I was really taken by the accuracy of their workmanship using a hand saw and wood chisel to cut the required joints.

Yesterday I observed the first shop activity of the new year for this program. The class consisted of two women and seven men, with more to arrive in the next few days. The students walked to the nearby home of the instructor in order to measure all the windows in his house so that they could build wooden window frames with screening to keep out mosquitoes. (The existing windows are made up of iron bars for security purposes but do not provide any mosquito protection.) After returning to the shop with all measurements in hand, the instructor pulled out a number of long planks of various widths and thicknesses and the students set about ripping them and cross-cutting them to the desired widths and lengths. The saws they used for these tasks were considerably smaller than standard and all of them needed sharpening! But with a lot of muscle power they managed to rip them quite accurately. Now for the thickness reduction with jack planes - again all done by hand.

My involvement with this Trade School class has not yet been defined, but it appears that I will likely be teaching some math concepts as a part of the theory portion of the program. More on this subject later.