Alanouwoly Salifou Sylla

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The House Project
	Salif had started a very ambitious guesthouse in Guinea on the outskirts of Boke. The original plan was a two storey building with roof terrace and balcony (the land is situated on a hill overlooking the area). He had involved local builder friends and expertise, up to 30 people working on it and there was quite a crowd praying for this building. This came to an abrupt halt with his death and we want to try raise funds to do this. The man in charge of this building is a childhood friend and his and other friends are building with a lot of love.

Very deep and solid foundations had been laid, but after Salif's death one of our members, a very experienced builder and engineer has assessed the plans and we have, together with the Guinean builders, come to the conclusion that we have to downsize the building to a simpler ground-level structure to have any realistic chance raising funds for it.

It was also agreed that we should look at building with the possibility to expand
to some of the original plans if our fortunes, prices or situation changes.

We spent about half of what we raised on Salif's Life Celebration on building a small African caretaker house which had nearly been completed very effectively when our chair and vice chair visited Guinea in January.The corners of the wall around the land have also now been built to mark the whole site with a view to completing when funds are raised.

Our chair and vice-chair, who is also a builder/engineer, have
kept meticulous records of all the costs involved in the building of the small house and were therefore able to make a more precise forecast of the money involved to complete the project. Various ideas for fundraising this quite considerable amount have been suggested and will be discussed at our next General Meeting.
The feeling is that the money needs to be raised in a relatively short time, as interest in the project would be hard to sustain, if the work was taking too long.

In Africa, due to the volatile nature of life and conditions, people tend to not plan very far ahead, but
we feel it's another positive aspect of our work, to try and achieve as much forward planing as possible. It means, of course, we have to be prepared that our plans can be thrown upside down at any time and we have agreed the need to manage our expectations with that in mind.

To see a more detailed report about the latest stage of the house building go to
Report for Alanouwoly on Visit to Boke, Guinea in January 2009 by Sally Peake

Progress of our Work 2010

Caretaker House was finished with a beautiful ceiling and some decoration on outside. An African shower/toilet was built. 25 trees and some groundnut cash-crop were nurtured, protected and eaten throughout the year. Local people have shown a lot of pride and love in the building, which our
chair and vice-chair again witnessed on their visit in January 2010. The work has also satisfied
our objectives of creating some work opportunities. Wire fencing has now been built around land.

House with decorations and plants in front

Inside House showing the beautiful ceiling

Progress of our Work 2011

Caretaker House was tiled and bathroom built onto it.
The structure of big house was built up and 3 rooms were built up to roof level with the plan to finish and use them.

left: view of the 3 rooms
right: inside the house

planting of lemon tree

Film of start of building

Salif's film of when building work first started, led by Seny Koumbassa, it really shows all
the work and quality that's gone into it and all the involvment of friends and local people.
Listen for Salif's voice and giggles.

Nansady Keita

association-diadia

Joliba Drum School

Master Compo

Mbilla Arts

Batafon Arts

Drum Cafe

Seckou Keita

Jamo Jamo

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