not made in keeping the bricks edges straight and unbroken, and not a
lot of care is used when putting up the bricks, a rather horrible
looking wall is the result with too much concrete mortar between the
joints and too far to the middle of the brick to look good. The thing
is, for construction here, it never ends at that stage. It's always
covered up with a layer of cement and sand to make a smooth finish. I
had the pleasure of watching this process in Beni and I'll describe the
situation.
A rather short guy was the one finishing the wall. He was working on
the top part of the wall and was standing on two boards placed across
the top of a 55 gallon drum creating his OSHA approved scaffold. The
cement mixture was brought to him periodically as the cardboard he was
using to keep it on couldn't hold much and he was going through it
pretty quickly. The cardboard was sitting on the floor boards of the
scaffold and the corners were propped up using chunks of broken bricks.
This basin is where he would scoop the mix from using a trowel. With
some unnecessary hand movements (okay, maybe they were necessary, but
they looked a bit weird) the trowel would reach the spot he was working
on (about head high at this point) and he would throw the mix into the
joint on the wall. After slapping more mix on the wall with the trowel,
he used a wooden float to smooth it out. This was a piece of wood about
8 inches square and it had a simple handle on the back (two small strips
of wood running parallel to each other with one more strip of wood
bridging the gap making a handle) and he would go over the wall in a
circular motion (these are also the kinds of floats they use to smooth
out the floors).
If it is an important wall, strings will be set across the wall in a big
"X" to show how far out the mix should come. If it's not an important
wall (this one wasn't), the eye is fine. It will be uneven, but then
again, the rest of the house is probably uneven too so it doesn't really
matter much does it?
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