First Day of Construction

Using rocks collected at World Hope International to stabilize side posts.

Today was an exciting day of constructing our first mushroom production system. We started the day by leveling the ground and using nylon string and stakes to determine the placement of the corner posts. After making sure each corner was exactly 90 degrees using the string and a right angle measure, we dug holes for all of the edge posts. This task was tough for us; Marc dug one hole in the time it took our Sierra Leonian construction team member to dig 2 and a half.

Marc digging a hole for side post.

After all the holes were completed, we treated the bottom portion of each wood post with carbolic acid to protect from termites and other damage. This end was then placed into the hole and stabilized with dirt and rocks we collected from the World Hope grounds. More nylon string was used to make sure all the posts lined up and were all at the same height. This process of digging holes and inserting posts was the main task for today and we were all impressed with how the structure is beginning to come together after getting all the posts erected.

Structure at the end of day one.

In addition to building the structure of the system, we also started the process of creating more grain spawn. We had soaked the grains overnight and during the day so we moved them into a pot with fresh water and tried to boil them. The World Hope facility no longer has a kitchen so we had to borrow an outdoor coal stove from a World Hope employee and use that as a heat source. We had never used one of these before, so we relied on our project manager Jawara to light it and oversee it. This successfully heated up the water, but we are worried that the grains may have been overcooked because we put a large amount of grains into a medium sized pot due to time constraints. We left them inside to dry overnight and will check on them in the morning.

Boiling grains on coal stove.

Today was a long day of hard work but we are very proud of how much we accomplished. No one one our team has ever worked directly on a construction project before so we are all learning a lot about the methods to build a sturdy structure, as well as just how much muscle it really takes. We've been taking plenty of notes in our construction manual so that we can refine it for future builds. We also realized how many mushrooms the shear size of the structure has the potential to produce and are considering downsizing for clients that are just beginning to learn the trade.