Mixed emotions

A day of mixed emotions so I’ll start from the beginning…

Went on site in the morning and it was with delight that I saw that they had already completed 2 of the 3 retaining walls, and that they had also cast one concrete slab… But not all was right! They had forgotten to leave space for the outlet for the water pipe (not too hard to resolve before the concrete settled) but unfortunately that was not the worst mistake… In doing what they thought would make me really happy, laying the new slab without my assistance (I was happy for the initiative however I just wished that they had looked at the drawings), they made a small mistake!

They did not upturn the DPM onto the walls… Luckily I got there before the concrete was dry and with a little paternal advice we managed to find a solution that would allow us to save the day. What we did was simple, and was to cut back the slab just enough to reveal the DPM, then we covered this gap with soft board (which we removed once the concrete was no longer dripping) and we will now paint a bituminous layer down the wall and fill this gap, thus connecting both DPMs. Problem solved 1 slab down 9 to go!

This was however a long task and Tau agreed that it won’t happen again, next time he’ll look at the drawings, but as he said it is from mistakes that we learn. He was quite sad about it though, but it was also thanks to his dedication and sacrifice of his lunch time that we got it right again.

From this I went on to my second thrill of the day, a meeting at Sentebale with the LCCU. As always it was quite a challenge, and this time I nearly lost control. I was upset because when they showed me a list of the furniture they needed some of it was for rooms that don’t exist. You cannot change the plans and a building every week! And some of these things could have made sense if they had been mentioned 3 month ago (not now that we have already started and agreed on everything). It was even more annoying because some of it seemed not to have been thought through at all. It is as if we have this space and now let’s see how much we can shovel into it!

Buildings are not like that! You can’t just add to something and in the end hope that it works (or looks ok for that matter)! I told them that, and after 2 hours of meeting it finally became clear that what they had written down was not actually what they needed. What they need is more coordination so that everything can work in what they have, and not create extra spaces, for accommodating what they want. Organizing instead of Adding is the solution for this one!

In a bad mood I went for my next meeting, expecting to get even more upset… But Molope surprised me today, and apart from one or two minor changes that I have already asked him to do, the plan is ready for Lydia’s house! He told me also that Zwane might have to stop working with us. And I told him that if he felt that he could do it alone I’d have no problem whatsoever with that, and would help him when he needed. So finally that one seems to be moving!
The final high of the day, was finding out from Linakane that we have managed to unblock the stone impasse and that we are now allowed to collect the stone in Mazenod! Great! Nothing is stopping us now from continuing and completing the fill in block B!