There were instances where the villagers covered their secondary shelter (food storage) with the IBAS tarp as they received it after they had already built their primary shelter. This gave me an opportunity to see what materials they could afford and what techniques they used to build their primary shelters with. However there were also instances of the government tarp being damaged so they would then use IBAS tarp in its place. When IBAS tarp was supplied after they had built their primary shelter, in most cases the villagers were using the coloured tarp (government supplied) and transparent waterproof plastic sheeting (bought them selves at 4RMB/m) as a laminate on either side of the coloured tarp. This produced a waterproof cover albeit not very strong; however I assumed surrounding trees and bamboo plantations diffused the wind adequately to protect the shelters.

Most structures were made using split bamboo much like that of IBAS shelters although using thinner walled species (arrow bamboo) that grows all over the mountain. The shelters built resemble your iconic house; 4 straight walls, a hinged door and a double sloping roof. As I mentioned before with the material that covered the shelter, the same goes for the structures built. They are somewhat feeble and I was not confident with a strong wind these structures would survive however they would survive a large earthquake, due to the “play” (movement) the building technique and material allows.

The structures that used wood as sidewalls instead of material would stand a better chance of staying upright in strong winds. (for images of the bamboo structures and shelters covered with IBAS tarp, please see photo gallery “Gansu shelters”).

Charts and maps of how, how much and where IBAS tarp has been used will be up shortly.

3 days after IBAS had built the shelter, the village officials put a TV and power supply in the shelter for the villagers to watch and charge their mobile phones. Two single men slept in the shelter but it was far from their original home and was on someone else’s land, so moved out after 2 weeks to newly supplied government shelters nearer to their home. Villagers then quarrelled, we are not sure what about but is believed to be about who was going to live there. The woman and her husband (one of the wealthiest families in the village) who’s land it was on wanted to live there however this was not ok with the local villagers as there were other people in much greater need, the woman did not want others living on her land, so they agreed to take it down and use the material on the village pigpens (however we were not shown the pigpens).

IBAS shelter site #02

Officials in Baigou Cun told us that a very strong wind turned the shelter over at night. Four people tried to keep the tarpaulin down but were unable. It is said that two families lived in the shelter (we later found out that it was just 2 single men) for 2 months before the wind. The material after the strong wind was then distributed to the men that were living in the shelter and used it to cover their temporary home and harvest-drying shed.

We to spoke to one of the men that lived in the shelter about his experiences, here follows his comments:

“the shelter is too narrow to be a home and not high enough, the door is too small to move my old furniture in, so it was just use for sleeping. We stayed dry inside the shelter when it was raining.”

IBAS Shelter site #03

We bumped into the chief of Cai Yu village in a nearby town who pointed a taxi in the right direction of the village. The accountant of Caiyu came out and showed us where the materials of the shelter that IBAS built are now being used.

We spoke to one of the two single men that was living in the shelter his comments follow below:

“I lived in the shelter for more than 2 months, I think a family of 3-4 people can live together in the shelter, the height, length and width are comfortable to live in. It is a good temperature at night however during the day it is a little hot. The water did not come into the shelter during the heavy rain however under the floor it became soft.”

The shelter that IBAS built was taken down because they wanted to use the material on their new temporary home that they were building them selves. We found that the materials were being used on their half destroyed home and an out house now used as a drying shed of the new harvest crop.

IBAS Shelter site #04
We gave Cai Yu enough material to build a secondary shelter and to my surprise they had done so. According to the village accountant it took 10 people half a day to build and a single man has lived in the shelter for the last 3 months. It was good to see that from one IBAS demonstration the local villagers understood and built the same IBAS shelter with the materials that we left for them.

Inside the shelter the single man had a bed with a mosquito net hung from the bamboo frame.

There was an electric meter mounted to the bamboo and some furniture with a TV on top in front of the bed with a bulb hanging on the end of a wire from the shelter structure. Just out side he had a makeshift cooking area made of a couple of bricks. However it was evident that he prepared the food and ate inside the shelter from the crockery, chopsticks and chopping knife on the food stained table inside the shelter.

We talked to the man (a farmer) that was living in the shelter of his experiences over the last 3 months;
“It is large enough for me to have my TV and bed, I don’t use the other half of the shelter, it is too big for me alone. My cat plays in the other end. It is hot during the day (one end of the shelter was closed and we advised him to open it during the day to increase the air flow) but at night it is fine.
Yes, we have had some very bad rain, but the inside has stayed dry (he stamps his foot) so far. I think that a family of 4 or 5 could live in here. I will live here until the government gives me money to build either my temporary home or my permanent house, but I don’t know when that will be.”

IBAS shelter site #05&6
This was our third mission up to build shelters as explained in the previous post Gansu bound where we were turned around at road blocks however we sent our translator Monica (who had been with us on all the other builds) to explain to the locals how to build the shelters. Xinkai is not too far from Baigou, so she asked some of the villagers from Baigou to help Xinkai build the shelters.

As expected no shelter was standing and is believe that no shelter was built albeit the official of Xinkai said they did build the shelters (we believe this as the tarpaulin was not cut to dimensions large enough to build a shelter). The tarpaulin is now being used on the roof of the government buildings of that village. This disappointed me as the materials were for the villagers. However as so little material (one bag) was delivered to this village it could be that no agreement was met between the villagers.

Basic conclusion

Over the course of the shelter assessment we have heard mixed stories about peoples experiences of living in the shelters. These have to be treated individually and no assumptions can be made from the six IBAS shelters that were built. IBAS shelters were designed to be a solution to bridge the emergency and secondary stage of a relief effort. In a sense this has happed as the tarp has been reused to cover new temporary homes.
This post is my initial finding from the field; a more in depth conclusion will be posted after I have had time to digest all that is learnt.

When: 20:20h Friday the 29th August 2008

Where: Living Design Centre, 407 Yi Shan Road, Shanghai.

About 2 hours in they hit jackpot. A supplier that could make the 36 bags of 30×12m2 triple laminate 14×16/inch weave in one day, and deliver in 4 days from Yiwu, in Zhe Jiang province to Longnan shi.
Discussions with the villagers and the government department started the morning the next day after a rebuilding ceremony of which the team were asked to be present.

There were mixed views as to the time people expected to be living in temporary shelters. The government was expecting villagers to move back into permanent housing within 3 months. Villagers however (more realistically) were expecting to live in their self-build temporary structures for a year. A controversy that could only be solved with two different shelter solutions.

Unlike the wide flat plains of Zundao with the foothills behind, Yuhe, deep in the mountains had very little flat land to build on. Individual small housing was more practical. They had timber, however they wanted to conserve the amount used in the temporary shelter as it was being reused in the construction of their permanent home. The 3 month solution was a simple A frame with low rubble walls: this conserves the amount of timber used. The 60 bags of tarp would cover 600 shelters according to this design. The year-long solution was similar to that of Zundao however using the tarp for the side walls as well as the roof. The 60 bags of tarp would cover 300 shelters according to this design. A cutting sheet for the tarp was made for both designs so that none of it would be wasted.

During their stay up in Yuhe problems accumulated with getting the tarp., which delayed the material by 4 more days.
Unfortunately the team could not stay until the materials arrived. Big minus. To date we have confirmation that the material has arrived in Yuhe.

Visa permitting Luke, will be heading back to the areas where the I BOUGHT A SHELTER team has worked. Feedback a month or two on, after the implementation of our shelters and materials, will be interesting. Photos will be posted later on this blog.

John and Stef talked about a potential partnership with George from TNGOSPGTHDA after they were done, Luke asked if he could go up to see their operation. With a few phone calls they sorted out an invitation (as an engineer) for him to go up for a day and a half to view their work.
Zundao had been very badly hit (all buildings levelled), and is mostly comprised of farming (rice and fruit) small villages of 70-200 people.

TNGOSPGTHDA and Luke spent the morning talking to villagers to find out their skills and assessing what materials they had available after the quake for temporary reconstruction. After about 5 hours Luke was asked, “can you draw?” Luke: “yes”, George: “good, we need you to design a shelter from what you have learnt this morning while I brief the villagers.” Luke was handed a school black board, a fat piece of chalk and 30 minutes to make a drawing for the villagers to work from. The design took what George previously discussed with Luke (identical to what HODR had been building in Bangladesh). Additional rubble walls reduce the amount of wood needed to make the walls and give a feeling of a more substantial ‘home’ structure. Each person in a family would be given 500RMB to construct a semi-permanent shelter so we were encouraging the villages to spend the money on corrugated cement roofing. It also joined two families in one “building” with a living room, bedroom and an exterior kitchen each, which reduces the material needed per family. This design would last them 2-3 years at least, which will see them though the rebuilding of the village and beyond, possibly to be used as crop storage. The design was then presented to the villagers by George over the course of the next hour, answering any of their questions.

The design was well received, as it involved them and their skills - therefore they would feel comfortable building them. After the presentation TNGOSPGTHDA and Luke jumped back on the bikes and headed back to the compound. Luke dashed back to Chengdu (3 hours south) in order to make the drawings to be printed so they could be distributed to other villages.

VISIT

The earthquake had destroyed some key bridges along the direct route into Gansu and so our trip took us from Chengdu through Guangyang and Lue Yang in Shannxi to Long Nan Shi, and then on to Yuhe where Mr Hu and the General Yang greeted us at the Golden Monkey Nature Reserve headquarters. We sat down to discuss how the project could help but before we could start we were welcomed by a deep growling and shudder from the mountain beneath us as an aftershock had everyone scrambling out their houses. We were taken around the village to see the extent of the damage and had the opportunity to meet and talk with local people who had been forced down from the hills above as their homes had been totally destroyed. The next morning we drove to Feng Xiang where we again were given a tour of the area and shown the damage caused by the earthquake.

SITUATION THERE

Although far away from the epicentre, the buildings up in the mountains of southern Gansu are mostly mudbrick and wood and as a result fared much worse than concrete buildings further south. Whilst the days are currently hot and humid winter is not far away and with this in mind work is already well underway in Yuhe. Where previously a two story building stood a roof had been built on top of the still standing first floor and other roofs have been replaced on buildings where the walls are intact. All around villagers are salvaging the wood, bricks and tiles from their destroyed houses in preparation for rebuilding. Feng Xiang, the second village we visited was 80% destroyed and nearly all the villagers were living in tents and makeshift shelters above their destroyed village in a muddy field. In both locations settlements above the main villages are even worse off with many hill farmers expected to move down to the larger villages to be housed in the villages as they are rebuilt.

OUR CONTRIBUTION

It has been a full month since the quake and most of the villagers have already built fairly sturdy shelters using salvaged materials. Following our survey of the situation and discussions with the village leaders and the local people, we have decided that the best way we can assist is by providing good quality durable tarpaulin and other roofing materials for their shelters. This makes sense since they already have plenty of wood for building new frames and most of the flat space for placing new temporary shelters is already occupied. The majority of the existing shelters are not water or wind proof and providing tarpaulin will provide an immediate improvement in living conditions for the people affected by the earthquake.

Today things weren’t quite so plain sailing however - it looks like access to some areas has been restricted and so we’re looking at heading further north into Gansu province to rural areas that we’ve heard need shelters. Currently we’re thinking of getting a train up there to do a reccy and see if we might be able to help with shelter up there. 

Lastly, a massive thanks to Monica, Rob, Natalia & Adam from Sichuan Quake Relief for their enthusiasm and energy on a scorching hot day out on Wednesday.