Hail, Saint Dominic! Hail, our Father!
Hail, O friend of God, to thee:
Chosen priest of Christ and Mary,
Guardian of the Rosary!

In the sacred work of Jesus
Bravely, Father, did you go,
Bringing truth to God's own children,
Spreading wide the Gospel glow.

Guide us on, O saintly Father,
In your growing family!
Showing your most holy banner,
Love, and prayer, and purity.

Stay, O stay with us, dear Father,
As through life we all must pass;
Keep you children ever faithful
To their motto, "Veritas"!

Today, 5th August, Dominicans in Australia and New Zealand celebrate the feast day of our founder, Domingo de Guzman.  (His feast is celebrated in most of the western Church on 8th August, but that day is taken by local saint, Mary MacKillop (Mother Mary of the Cross)  in the Antipodes.)

Domingo (Dominic) died on 6th August, 1221, but as that day in the calendar was already taken by the feast of the martyr Pope St Xystus and his deacons and companions in martyrdom , Agapitius and Felicissimus, Dominic was assigned to 5th August.  (Later, of course, the Feast of the Lord's Transfiguration was added to the calendar on 6th.)  Today is thus his original feast day.  After the Council of Trent, Dominic was moved to 4th August;  in 1969 to 7th - and a year or two later to 8th.  He is a much-travelled saint!  When Mary MacKillop was beatified, after consultation with the Dominicans, the bishops of Australia and New Zealand chose to return to 5th August for St Dominic, a date that had the advantages of being closes to his actual anniversary, and a day supported by the earliest tradition.

Sadly, I have heard that in these countries, from 2012, our Holy Patriarch will been moved to 7th again, and reduced to an optional memorial - which in practice means that most Aussies and Kiwis will never celebrate him.  Of course, Dominicans will celebrate him as a solemnity.

In the Solomon Islands, and here in Papua New Guinea, Saint Dominic remains on 8th August, the place he holds in the current Roman Calendar.

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Here you can see the trench for the foundations of the kitchen extension - a modest structure, just a single-storey extension at the back of the old building, but one which will make our daily life much easier!

The back-hoe, which broke up the concrete and did so much of the hard digging, can be seen in the background.

Work started yesterday on the second part of our project, a modest extension to our kitchen.  It has had the intersting side-effect of exposing the foundations of the existing building - and it is indeed interesting to compare them with our new work.

This picture tells the story.  The bricks of the foundations to the old house are 1.2 metres deep, with the bricks resting on concrete which is 60mm thick at its thickest, but generally about 30mm thick, and about 30mm wider than the bricks themselves  This is resting on the white clay soil.

On the other hand, the foundations of the new building, and of this extension, are 1.8 metres deep.  The bricks rest on a footing of reinforced concrete (containing ten longitudinal reinforcing rods and regular lateral rods) that is 400 mm thick and 1,000mm wide, resting on a layer of gravel placed over the clay soil:  massive by comparison.

In another place, the old foundations do descend 1.8 metres like our new construction, but again they rest on very thin concrete, and in this place that concrete footing is no wider than the bricks themselves.

The old building has stood up very well over the twenty-five years since its erection:  we can expect at least as good a performance from this new one.

Once again, I'll let the pictures tell most of the story.  The huge pump and boom truck was most impressive ... and a bonus for us was that we were able to use some left-over concrete to mend a washed-out portion of our driveway.  As I write, the bricklayers are already laying the bricks for the walls of the upper storey.

To give you a break from progress on the new building, here are some photos of the latest additions to our community:  Don (the black one) and Rascal (the tabby).  The truth is that we had a problem with mice in the larder.  Although the cute duo haven't actually caught anything yet, their mere presence seems to have banished the mice, where traps, poison and glue all failed.  Thanks, kittens!

The pictures below show the steady progress we are making with the building:  the ground-floor walls are up, and we are nearly ready to pour the concrete floor of the first storey...

Below, you will see that one of our neighbour's dogs enjoys the sand pile, while one of the bricklayers passes on the craft to his little som

This is the picture from the end of the balcony outside my room this morning (Saturday 11th June.)  You can see that the concrete infill of the bricks is partially complete on the wall on the left.

The bricklayers - quiet, methodical workers who start at first light and rarely finish before dusk - have begun laying the brickwork in the foundations.  You can see the accuracy of their work!  Also, note the reinforcing rods, just peeping over the top of the bricks:  the bricks are filled with concrete, and new rods will be inserted for the next layers above.

These pictures were taken on Thursday, 9th June.

After a long delay, due to an usually prolonged wet season in Port Moresby, the foundations of our extension have at last been laid.
Progress has been swift, once the builders made a start.  The first photo you see below was taken on Sunday morning;  the last, this  morning (Tuesday.)  Both architect and builder are delighted with the 1.8m foundations.  The black, alluvial soil was not as deep as we feared, and the soil below will make a good foundation.  "You can build four stories," the builder assured me confidently.  But two will suffice for us now!
Enjoy the snaps ...

It has begun! The builders may not have turned up, but on Monday morning after Mass the community celebrated undeterred the turning of the first sod and blessing of the site for our building extension (see earlier post.) In the words of the psalm, nisi Dominus frustra... Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do the builders labour.
We concluded with the antiphon to St Dominic, O Lumen Ecclesiae. The pictures tell the story ...