Construction Zone

For the past three months, my block has been a construction zone.  When I moved into this apartment in August, there was an empty lot next to our building.  At the beginning of December, construction started to build a small hotel.

This new building is just inches from my house.  I can touch it from our windows.  Once the second story is added, it will completely block the windows on the east side of our house which means no more light and no more breeze.

This construction has meant waking up nearly every morning at the crack of dawn to the sound of shovels scraping the road as they mix cement, pounding of hammers, and men singing, yelling, and arguing as they work.  The sidewalk and street in front of our house is perpetually muddy.  There have been giant piles of rocks and gravel covering our sidewalk and half of the street since they started working in December.  Just when we think the pile will soon disappear, a truck comes and unloads more.

The worst problem is the dust.  Building cement block homes means lots and lost of dust.  We sweep the house daily, and daily we have a huge pile of dust.  One day, we even had mini "dust dunes" forming on our tile floor.  It is impossible to keep up with cleaning.  There are quite literally clouds of dust blowing so thick that it sometimes looks like fog.  I wonder why we even bother to wash our dishes after using them because we have to wash the the dust off of them before we can use them again anyway.

The crew of men was working on cementing the second floor of the hotel this week.  That meant waking up to men looking in our bedroom window saying, "Hey, come look at the white girls sleeping!"  They also began slopping the cement without warning us to close our window.  By the time we realized, Keziah had cement splattered on her bed and desk.  They are not the most conscientious workers to say the least.

Thankfully, after Kez spoke to the foreman, he personally cleaned her window for her.

Just when we thought that we'd had enough of this construction, it got worse.  Directly across the street from us, a family decided to add a second story to their one story home.

That means, construction beside us and across from us.  Could it get worse, you might ask?  Yes...yes, it can.  Someone also decided to tear down a building catty-corner from our house.

We are surrounded!  One can only hope that they won't be rebuilding that house any time soon.  I don't think I can handle much more construction or piles of rock everywhere.  Soon, we will have to wear hard hats just to leave our house.