“the signs they are a-changing!”

Between driving off to site to organize the sign people and also trying to get drawings and ideas ready for the weekend, I must say (once again) that I am exhausted!

I started off by driving the sign people to site! Then sorting all different sorts of things that need to be addressed before the weekend, and when I noticed what time it was again I had to be off to site to take the sign people again!

As soon as I arrive there was another Bakkie, this one with the contractor! We were both meant to be back in Maseru for a meeting but we eventually made it, and it now seems that we will manage to do something during November.

Thuso Centre

A hectic morning trying to organize some aspects for the LCCU and then a drive up to Butha-Buthe has exhausted me completely.

If all goes according to plan this weekend we will be able have a pretty good idea of what the building will look like. I have pushed for the light fittings to be bought and have managed to go and see the guys that are doing the steel to see if they just push it a bit!

But sometimes you cannot fight a lost battle, let’s see how it goes. I refer to this short example of what sometimes happens when someone that does not know what they are doing makes a decision. Look at the photo and tell me how are you meant to get to the Thuso Centre now that the road has been cut off by a new allocation of land?

Promises

If the construction of the LCCU progressed on promises, it would actually be finished long time ago!

Today as everyday I got more promises… Promise from the electrician that he would come tomorrow. Promise from the plumber that he would finish with the fittings tomorrow, and the eternal promise/hope that we will have thatch on site tomorrow.

But the sad thing is that I know that out of all these promises tomorrow probably none of them will be fulfilled!

Shop shop shop!

I spent most of my day going from hardware store to hardware store!

In the morning I went with Pete (K4L) to buy some parts to try and attach the goals at the blind centre to the floor, but although in theory it would work perfectly, the reality was that the ground was either too soft or too hard!

But during this trip I did manage to have a look at the carpet tiles that I wanted, after a bit of persuasion I managed to take the catalogue (which I promised to return by the end of the day, but forgot) and went to site to check the colours with the walls…

Surprisingly the bets match was a brown that on its own was not that attractive!

Whilst I was there I got a call from Ntate Sello to meet him at Build it, which I did and we then spent a few hours looking for taps and tiles, pans and basin… the Full Monty!

In the end he did not have money to buy everything today so we will resume this task on Monday!

The roof dance.

When I was still in London working for JLA I had a German friend who once told me that back (at his) home when you complete the roof of a building the contractor and the architect go up on the roof and do a roof dance and proclaim poetry!

I wonder if this tradition came from joy or desperation! The kind of despair that makes one so thankful when something is finally over that they literally climb the roof and go ape!

In my case, although I am not German I will surely be on the roof once it is finished, and yes it will be out of despair!

Today once again the contractor has his phone off and I cannot call him! I do not know what he is doing all I know is that I do not have thatch again, and if that was not enough some of the plaster needs to be redone as it has lost it’s grip to the wall.

But my favourite upset of the day has to be the fact that the electrician has decided, for the second day in a row, not to come to work! You will never guess where he went, but I will tell you, it is an ugly, big building with Doric columns on the front porch! Can you guess where that is?

Fittings, thatch, pipes and steel

Morning was spent looking for light fittings so that we can start mounting them on site. Unfortunately when I arrived back to tell the electrician about my findings he was not there.

The roof solution for the canopies works well on paper now, and I just need to be sure that it works… Today it was not possible because there were still other issues to solve specially concerning the ridge. As it is the roof in the different parts of the same block are at the different levels and Ntate Sello was trying to get them to match. But I spoke to the thatcher and I do not think it is worth wasting 2days work just to adjust it 100-200mm.

This said it would be nice if they matched but it could just go the either way and we would still 100mm higher but on the other side. So better just leave it as it is.

So once that was sorted I decided to run a few tests to see if we had the appropriate fall in all our drainage pipes… Water down the pipe and will it come out the side?

Yes! They worked, so I can say that I’m pretty pleased with that.

My last task for today was organizing to buy the necessary steel sections so that the Ntate Letchesa could start manufacturing them... all went well and the frames will actually be slightly cheaper than I had imagined so another good thing.

Up or down…

I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out a solution for the different canopies in the building, both in and inside.

And every time I think I’ve finally found the solution the change in heights between the blocks makes me have to re-think it all over again! So yesterday I did what I should have done first. I measured exactly what my margins and tolerances are.

Now I’ve redesign it and it works on paper. Later I will discover if it also works on site!

Yesterday screeds

A morning visit to site yesterday allowed me to see the screeds in Block B being done. I discovered then that the screeds are not really sand and cement screeds as you would normally expect…

Because I had asked for a 50mm screed as opposed to the traditional 25mm they have decided to mix crushed stone in it, thus effectively transforming it into another thin concrete slab, this one is however finished with a trowel and its final look is that of a normal screed.

Not quite sure what effect this will have on the overall performance of floors but I hope it will not be bad.

Colour test

A fortunate mistake in communication between me and the contractor ended up by creating the solution for the interior door frames.

Having specified a tone of cream that was very similar to the interior walls, I failed to explain that by frames I meant the mouldings and not the metal frames themselves…

So not to waste this paint I asked the foreman to make a test and use it for the internal frames… The result is quite good, or so we believe!

Not again.

After a meeting this morning I had to redesign the kitchen layout for what is now either the 3rd or 4th time… I wish we just all reached an agreement and stuck to it!

Besides that my morning was filled by a visit to the LCCU to show Richard Graham, Comic Relief, Sentebale’s involvement and the progress on this project.

The changes today had not been many but I think he was happy with what he saw. The steps on the courtyard (the other side) should now be finished and that gives the space a new more complete look, if we forget that there is no roof in half of it!

Hat-trick!

Not tries or goals but of things that finally got done on site!

1-0 Today I managed to get TED to come out and we decided how we would proceed with the sewerage pipes! No major issues there, just something that needed to be done!
2-0 The caps for the thatching have been made and they look a lot better than the original one than by the thatcher. These ones were made by a cap specialist!
3-0 The steps have been corrected and although they are not perfect they do look presentable now…

And that’s it for the day, can’t complain too much I guess.

Stepping out!

I must admit that I was too nervous to even think about going to site yesterday, but today as I arrived I noticed the steps were not quite right!

Looking at them they are drifting “slightly” to the courtyard, although I know that they will not fall in, I had to ask them to change them! I hope that by tomorrow, once they have been adjusted it will be a bit less noticeable…

Well it was not that bad from a distance but up close it was quite appalling!

But whilst I waited for Ntate Sello to return so that we could have a final agreement on that matter I decided to help out the women who where sorting and tidying up the thatch. As it happened there were 3 of them carrying it all the way from the sorting ground (at the entrance of our site) to the office room (now converted into a store room) and there were 3 wheelbarrows just sitting there…

With a little organization we manage to set up an assembly line and that little task progressed better and with a lot less effort! If only all our problems where this easy to solve!

It will get better

The roof guy showed up early this morning and the structure has now been changed to what it should have been from the start.

Later in the day I returned to the site to meet Ntate Linakane and I noticed that there was a problem with the screed between the girls’ bedroom and the toilet. If I had been here to control the screeding of the floors they would have been screed at different heights to avoid water going from the bathroom to the room, but this didn’t happen and it seems we will have to cut a gully to avoid this from happening.

Not the end of the world but yet another (small) problem.

The setting out of the steps went well and they should be cast during the weekend. Thatcher moving fast and that is what we need.

Bracing, pipes and thatch

It should not have been hard to repeat what they had done on Block A and do the same on block B but strangely enough they didn’t managed. I met the roof guy today and he then decided that he will come around tomorrow and fix it.

The plumber was there as well and we finally managed to discuss where, how and what to do with pipes. He works fast and that seems to be one chapter where I don’t expect many problems.

A quick chat on the roof with the thatcher was cheering as he says that he feels that they should be able to roof Block B in 10 days… Let’s see how it goes…

And here we go (again)

19 days, 5 capital cities, 7 planes and 27761km later I find myself once again standing in the same old site looking at the same old problems.

During all this time I only managed to have little contact with the site, I phoned a few times but now it’s time to start again.

A lot changed during these nearly 3 weeks that I was offline! I finished my thesis, Camille passed hers, England revived their RWC campaign, Block A now has a full roof and doors and windows are being installed.

But even before I landed I saw once more that I would not be able to keep my promise and complete the building for the first week of November. The shortage of grass is still haunting us, and only slowly have we managed to find enough for our project.

As soon as I landed I went to site to check on the progress… the courtyard is finally looking good, the number of steps will have to be increased and we still don’t have the poles for the canopy, and the changes in Block A are impressive. The roof structure in Block B was braced in a strange way though…

The weather has been miserable and unfortunately that has also set us a back a little…but on the other hand the grass is greener, and the volunteer house for Sentebale is also nearly there!