Trowel-skills workshop

Haitian Mason Project conducts workshops at job sites or soon-to-be job sites to teach basic trowel skills and block laying techniques for the local masons who will be working there. It always happens at these events that the majority of the experienced Haitian masons are extremely awkward with their first attempts to spread mortar properly for laying block. The prevailing method here is to plop a stiff and thick bed of mortar on the wall, then set a block on it and repeat. The blocks are laid with no head joint (the vertical line that separates the block) and then…