No show (once more)

Do not be scared by the picture!
This fire started today behind the Sentebale office, but thanks to Patricia’s sharp eye, we were able to put it out (nearly 1,5 hours later) before it reached our fence. However the title of today’s blog does not refer to this but to another not unusual but annoying event!

It is not the first second or third time that I get a no show by the contractor! (I waited all day, called about 3 times and still ziltch)!

No wonder work does not progress at the right rhythm, but I honestly don’t know what I can do to make him work better!

On site, which I visited just before it closed, work was slowly on its way with not much progress being noticed between yesterday and today. Met the electrician and decided to change a few plug positions in order to make the building phases more efficient.

Also in order to make things more efficient and less time consuming I have decided to cut down the number of decorative panels. Now they will only be fitted on the two long walls, simplifying the fixings and also making it less expensive.

One of my tests finally survived, and although it was the one made of simple clay (commercial) with mesh on the inside I’m happy that I now have a formula that works. I will try and come up with a refined mixture using local clay (crushed) so that we can make the panels virtually costless.

The reason why some of the other panels just cracked was the fact that when clay dries out it shrinks and harder backings would not allow it to shrink naturally thus causing it to crack! It is in fact unbelievable how much they actually shrink: the sample was 295 and shrunk down to 280. I will need to measure on site and then make the fixings in such a way that they can absorb these (possibly different) shrinkages.

Back (once more)…

Sometimes I wonder for how long this build is actually going to last… I’m disappointed but not surprised.

From the list of tasks that I left to be carried out this week, very little which can be seen has been done! It’s a disappointment because it means that in no way will it ever be near completion by the time I need to leave. And I don’t understand it, every day that goes by is a day on which they are loosing money, so why don’t they speed it up and get done with it…

Of course it doesn’t help if your thatcher doesn’t show up, or you run out if stone just two loads short of the top, but surely more could have been done this past week. Even when I phoned on Tuesday and Thursday I had the impression that it was going better than I have seen! Ok one slab has been cast and the other should be cast tomorrow, but these are things that should have finished month ago! The exterior plastering is also on it’s way but then again that is not a major achievement…

Tomorrow I have already organized to meet Ntate Linakane and maybe we will be able to talk it out, but even that I doubt.

And this was not the only disappointment of the day, another small project that I started with Camille has also slightly side tracked due to client changes, but in end I do hope that it will look ok.

The only joy of the day (although not 100%) was to see children playing in the refurbished Football pitch for the blind, it needs one or two finishing touches but at least it reminded me why I enjoy doing this. To see people (children) smiling and enjoying themselves!

Away for a week

Once again Baba is in charge of the site… Work has been set out and hopefully when I return block B will be looking more like a building and less like a hole!

Contractor for a day

I picked up the truck at 8:30 am, as had been organised yesterday, and by the time I had arrived on site and that truck was already on its way to load some stone another truck popped up at the entrance!

Yesterday we had none and today we had two! It was bound to happen! So Ntate Sello and I just did what needed to be done, we organized for one truck to stay and collect the stone that we’d already quarried and together with the other truck we sent off to buy the stone at another place.

Thanks to Sentebale’s willingness to speed up the project it was possible to pay off the stone and profit of the fact that we had 2 trucks! In total we managed to bring to site 10 loads (60m3) and tomorrow we will do an extra 7 which should allow us to have enough stone to complete both fills.

Somehow I cannot understand why it had taken so long to organize everything, I tried and it was easy… So now let’s just get all we need so that then we can cast the slabs and start cruising to completion!

Accidents do happen

The most tragic accident happened today, luckily it was not on site and none of our people was injured.

I would like to share my deepest sympathy to you and I hope that you will recover soon.

In the mean time I will try and relieve you of some of your worries and work load.

It was in this spirit that I have decided to order a truck for tomorrow 8:30am. This morning when I visited the LCCU the truck had not arrived there so I have now, and in the light of recent events, take into my own hands the responsibility to source a truck to allow us to carry on work as normal.

I had gone to visit the LCCU, with Andreas from TED to discuss the water issues, when I discovered that there was not truck yet organized. I also met the thatcher, who gave me the good news that it would only take him 3months to complete each block… and by the time that I made it back to the office I received the news that there had been a road accident with a victim.

After that I decided that both for work to carry on and for people to be able to recover that I had to take it on me to organize the next couple of days. To start I have organized a truck for tomorrow and we will see how we take it from there on…

On to a more cheerful note, the QEII playground opening ceremony was today and it was with great pleasure that I noticed that the NEW hospital superintendent was very happy that we had built the playground here in his hospital!

The inauguration kind of reminded me of Expo98, when by the time people were making nice speeches about the success and goodness of the whole event there were still contractors and cleaning people finishing up on the other side of the park. This because just minutes before the ceremony I had been there fixing the swing to the tree! I had to insert a floor tile into the tyre to prevent the little kids from falling through but I think it will be a success. Judging by its short life today it will as children were already knocking each other over both to play in it but also from playing in it! Maybe I’ll have to dismount soon, if something serious does happen…

Up, up but nowhere…

I finally managed to get through to Ntate Linakane and he promised me that tomorrow I would have a truck. I do hope so!

On site today plastering continued slowly, and with a lot of hard work and setting up scaffolding on unfinished fills we managed to complete the ring beam on block B.

I also asked Ntate Sello if they could start clearing out a 2,5 metre perimeter around the internal courtyard so that we can start to prepare to also cast those slabs. It has still not been decided if their will be a small retaining wall on a strip foundation or if the the perimeter slab will sit on a rock fill with pad foundations for the poles (that will support the canopy) but I do wish that we go for the wall solution as it will mean less work.

Linakane does not seem to interested in the bonus that we have offered him if he decides an end date and completes within it, but tomorrow I will try once more and negotiate an end date.

Work on the Football pitch is ongoing, and it is looking better day by day. At least there are things that are going the way we planned and those have been keeping me busy whilst I wait for those trucks…

100

I had timed the blog perfectly with my school obligations, today I would have been writing about how well the build had gone and how happy I was with what we have achieved, instead I’ll have to write about one of the most frustrating days ever!

I spent all day trying to call Ntate Linakane to see if we could sort out the truck problem! Unfortunately his phone was either on voicemail or with no ring tone, I assume a network issue as I tried every 30 minutes. Although my will is to just go ahead and order the trucks and then deal with it as it happens I’m afraid it might cause further problems so I did not do it. But I do not know how much longer I can wait!

The whole day was not wasted anyway… Pete and Susie (K4L) have a couple of friends over, Paul and Rachel, and they have decided that they wanted to revamp the football pitch at the Blind Centre. Over the weekend we had discussed alternatives of how to it and today we set out to buy the materials needed and they have already started it.

Another achievement of the day was to finally manage to speak to the guy that drilled the borehole at the LCCU. I learnt the capacity (18 L/m) and the depth (50m and water 9m) of it and this will for sure help us in discovering why we are not being able to pump enough water. In the next couple of days I will meet with TED to discuss this.

So all in all, the day was not that bad but not as good as I had hoped, when long ago back in March I started both the project and this blog. But slowly we are getting there…