Bye bye

Lesotho and the LCCU are now far... More than a day has passed since I last saw the building, and I wonder, how long will it take to finish? And what will it finally look like? Will the children like? And will it serve their needs?

I know that I have left it in good hands but still I would have liked to see it finished… I know I will someday and I hope it will make the difference we all hoped.

Thank you guys for all the work you put into this (on site, in the office, and everywhere), and thanks for all the good times! Lesotho, and this building for Sentebale/LCCU is an experience that I will always keep close to my heart.

I write this “final” post only now because as I arrived yesterday morning in Paris I discovered my grandmother had passed that same night. So I am now in Lisbon... Goodbye Avó! Although I am not a great believer, and I suspect that you were not much better, you are now closer to Avô, where ever that may be.

Photo Session

I have done all that I could to try and get most of the things covered before I left. If I had had more cooperation I would have been more successful, but not always (and especially not here) everything happens the way it should do!

Tomorrow I will however leave with the feeling I have done my best! Let’s just see how much I can get done tomorrow?

But today I will post a new photo gallery (click here) as it might have been the last day I had to take some nice photos of the building in the sun… The weather has been very unusual for this time of the year!?

1st Poles

Finally the first signs of a canopy start to appear. This morning we spent 4/5 hours putting up this canopy.

It works well and with a little site tweaking we managed to gain a little extra headroom which will be crucial once we get to the steps.

I really hope we manage to make a move these next 3 days as I would really like to leave with the feeling that this problem has been completely solved.

Trials and tribulations…

It all started yesterday as I realized, by tests, that what worked well on paper actually doesn’t work in reality! I even had 100mm to spare (on paper) but, it is just not possible…

So the canopy cannot sail under the roofs eaves and be mounted on to the walls, only solution is to hang it from the rafters. It is actually a more elegant solution, and be using a flexible joint it is also possible to avoid any extra wind pressure which might affect the roof structure.

So now that the holes for the floor brackets have been enlarged, the wall ones abandoned I spent most of the day organizing metals braces and other bits (not successful in all cases) to see if tomorrow I will manage to try them out!

a different view

It looks quite different now that the ceiling is up. Strange it divides the space a lot more! I will wait till the front is finished to have an opinion.

Apart from that I spent the day organizing brackets bolts and anchors so that tomorrow we may start the canopy! Really looking forward to that!

What hats are for…

Today I discovered much at my own expense what hats are for!

We finally managed to get the roof finished! We had already closed it and today we finished spraying it…. No wonder that spending 6hours looking up at the roof had its affects on my skin.

A test on a sample of the grass proved it efficacy as the non-treated portion burned fast and then the fire actually stopped when it didn’t manage to penetrate the treated thatch.

Also we finished the installation of the lightning conductors! SO now 4 long masts hover over the LCCU keeping it safe!

Two victories in one day I wonder what tomorrow will bring!

All covered.

I woke up unnecessarily early to meet the Thatchsayf people. As it happens I forgot that they would be coming over from Jo’burg and calculated their arrival from Bloem instead!

So I waited and waited and waited… Eventually around 12:30pm they made it across the border, which means that the work that was supposed to be finished today will carry on during tomorrow.

The chemical they spray can stain the slabs and the exterior walls so I spent the afternoon, whilst overseeing the spraying, being sure that that didn’t happen!

Coming round

As we come round the last corner of this 11month long marathon I am starting to realize how much we have achieved, how much we can still do and how much we haven’t!

It has been a long ride, up and down… but worth every second of it! Tomorrow we will start work, and hopefully finish, the fire proofing! That will be one step closer to sleeping soundly at night!

The retaining wall is still coming along, but we are now short of blocks… it seems that however calculated how many we needed missed by more than half. Ah! Not really a surprise after such a long time! But still another delay…

Hopefully we will make up for it soon and continue to bring this wall round to the front of the building!