The Walls of Time

Yesterday, I took a personal day off from school to build an old-school wall made of rammed earth. My friend Ben works for a ministry called Monte Sion. Their church grounds are outside of Bogota in a town called Chia. The grounds are a big hacienda that used to be a farm. One of their earthen walls collapsed and they have been repairing it for a couple weeks. They wanted to build the new wall just like the old one, which is to dig up earth, sift it, and ram it into a wall. It takes about two hours to do a 10 foot section.

I decided to take the day and go help. I did a little of everything from moving dirt to tamping it down. I wish I had my camera to show the process, but Liz has it on her camping trip. The wall is almost complete. All that is left is to put tile on the top so that there will be no rain damage. It was an experience. I now know that in a small place in this world there is a rammed earth wall that I helped to build. It will last, on its own, for a couple hundred years. Talk about leaving an impression.