Writings of Saint Lucia, Ghana and life in general. A Peace Corps Volunteer in St. Lucia, visiting faculty in Ghana and grandma for life. This is a look back at the details of my travels and a document for my grandchildren. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. This blog does not express views of U.S. Peace Corps, Webster University, my family, dog or any institutions named or linked to these pages. It's life observation as I interpret it.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Houses on Stilts
I was sure homes were built on stilts because of flooding - or that it had something to do with hurricaines. I was wrong and very surprised at the answer. The answer is "money". Houses are built on stilts because people don't have the money to build the "whole" house. They build pieces of their homes over the years and it's usually the top floor that is built first. The house I'm living in was built on stilts. A few years later they added walls and created an apartment downstairs. Even later they built another building to the front and to the side of their home which is now an apartment upstairs and a pizza shop downstairs.
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1 comment:
I hadn't realized that, but it makes sense. I remember one of the trainers mentioning how once you have a roof the gov't or whoever can't stop you from finishing a house, so people put up a roof first without walls. Maybe from there it's easier to turn that into a floor for the second story.
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