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!

By chance

After the last few days trying to pin down contractors, suppliers, etc so that the project can move on, I managed to bump into Ntate Linakane today!

As I was walking around Maseru trying to find a suitable steel angle to use as a baseplate for the poles in the courtyard I went to Cashbuild and alone and behold who was standing at the door with a lot of materials… It was Ntate Linakane and Ntate Sello, buying most of the bits that we needed to finish the building.

After almost a week of chasing I had managed to just find him at a place where I had no idea I would… Great thing it happened!

I helped them load and then took part of it to the site, where things are slowly starting look like they might be finished after all.

Base for safe

A blowtorch was used (exceptionally) again today but this time I was there just to make sure nothing wrong could happen.

But to be honest the threat was close to zero today. The torch was used to weld the copper cables for the earthing of the lightning conductors and it was used outside and at some distance from the building, but still I was happy to just overlook it!

So that done, stage 0.5 of the fire protection is completed. The bases for the Masts are now in place and once the concrete has properly cured the masts will go up next week.

On the rest of the building work is still on going at a desirable rate, especially the electrical works, however due to material shortages once again we have not been able to start the canopy…

Preparations

The next two and a half (final) weeks of my stay are starting to look quite busy.

With the biggest part of the building already completed, major works I mean, going around doing the bits and pieces will not be as easy as I hoped…

Two days ago we started setting out the retaining, and yesterday it was started. The combing of the thatch has also started and that will be slowing down the whole progress until it is finished. The ceiling is being prepared, the lightning conductors, fire-retardant, playpumps and all other bits and pieces are lined up to start this coming week.

Coordinating all this and getting the canopy done as well is going to be chaos, but I do look forward to it!

Ceilings up!

The new electricians have managed to solve all of the left by our old friend, still one or two issues that we are not sure how to do but by the end of the week they should be done!

The roof is also starting to be combed down and that is something that needs to happen as next week we will be spraying it with the fire retardant!

The ceilings and that is the one that has made the biggest change today have already the frame in place, and by looking at them I think that maybe I would like to leave it open. But let’s see how it looks when finished…

All is coming to an end and the next weeks look like they are going to be a bit of a rush to get everything finished.

Workmanship and contributions

The rhythm of the work on site has slightly slowed down, well maybe it hasn’t but now that the roof is finished and most of the glass installed, the other jobs do not look as such great feats…

The boys toilet is being done up and should be finished also quite soon, and the doors are being mounted. However not all is going according to plan. The previous electrician seems to have left us with a small problem at hands…

The conduits for the electrical cable have been badly installed and are bent in ways that we are having a bad time trying to sort. I hope that we will manage to sort this out soon, but if not we might still end up having to cut up some slabs.

Now on a completely different subject. We are currently in the process of trying to make a list of all donors and their contributions to this project. I have received from time to time comments from people how seem to have been involved with the LCCU, so please if you read this, just let us know your envolvement.

Closed

This is a small step for construction but a large step for the LCCU!

We have finally closed the roof… After weeks, months of agony and disaster we have finally managed to close the roof. I have decided to save the roof dance for once it is truly finished but just the idea that we no longer are going to have to and look for thatch, and that if it rains inside will be dry cheers me up!

Thank you guys! Now we can really focus on finishing this building!

Glass, gates and poles

Trying to coordinate the little bits that are still missing you sometimes realize that you still need to redesign a few things…

After meeting with the electricians yesterday, today was dedicated to the steelworks and the lightning conductors. All went well, but I realized that with all the amendments that this building has had, the security gates that I was going to ask them to make were actually bigger than the openings! Ops… So back to the drawing board, and now it’s all sorted out again!

With the lightning conductors all has been agreed and in the next week we should actually start to install them.

The rain kept away until this evening and that is clearly good news as the roof is almost done now! And with the Glass being fitted already it is really starting to look good.

Getting closer…

When I first saw the LCCU today I thought I might have to get my dancing shoes and my little german hat, as it is nearly time for the roof dance!

At a closer look, I realized there is still one or two days left of work before I can even contemplate this but we are getting there.

A very good surprise has been the new team of electricians that has joined our project… They believe they can finish within our time frame and that can only cheer me up, what really annoys me is to hear from them what I already knew, that the previous one was incompetent!

So as work carries on to complete, we have also continued our task of trying to update the inventory of what we have and what we have not… but at a more challenging location this time.

It drains like a fountain…

Today there was a massive downpour of rain and it served to test our courtyard’s draining system… Surprise surprise! It works well!

But before I did any of that I went to Matsieng to help Jamie with the inventory of the stuff for the LCCU. A lot of stuff was there but not all that we hoped to find… Hopefully we will find it elsewhere otherwise it is more expenses that we will need to incur in.

So once that task was finished we did the aforementioned stop at the site. The courtyard drains fine, and Ntate Tau has nearly finished all but one of the window frames. The material for the ceiling has been bought, and so has the cement for the aprons, all is going well but if we do not have a few dry days we will not be able to close the roof!

Please let it be dry for the rest of the week… Please!

All sorted

My bags have finally arrived and nothing had been stolen or broken, maybe the smelly cheese that was in it kept the thieves away. Who knows?

As a result I have been able to update the blog and a couple of posts from last week are now (finally) online!

As usual I went to the LCCU today and progress is now evident at every passing day! The roof is nearly closed and it is now only fair to start believing that for once we might actually make it. The walls are also almost all finished and ready for the finishes, with Ntate Tau working hard to finish the frames in the courtyard. The canopy is the single element which has not been started but that should pose no serious problems and I’m fairly relaxed about it’s execution.

All the partners are aware of our progress and we are currently drawing up work schedules so that we can get all the loose ends tied before I leave.

Jamie Yates, has just joined us here at Sentebale working as a volunteer during his gap year, and will be helping with the move to the new building. Hopefully things will start to move and I will still see some of the interiors already organized and habitable. If not others will and then I will receive pictures!

La Vache!

First of all let me apologise for the delay in this and the last posting!

I wrote them both on time, but since I have arrived I have been a little bit out of contact… Airlink managed to loose my bags even when I personally checked them in at Jo’burg! So now I have very little hope in seeing them…

But work goes on, as it can, and little by little progress on site seems to be showing. I hope to have the roof closed by next week but let’s just wait and see?

Yesterday and today we had a new presence on site! A cow! Not that it will do much work but at least it’s helping to graze the grass which is quite long by now!

I hope my bags will turn up tomorrow otherwise it will be more than just a charger and few days of work that I will loose, but nearly 5/6 years of my life and work! All stored on my hardisk which I stupidly had sent through in my checked luggage!

back once again like the renegade master...

For the first time in my now long list of travels between Europe and Lesotho, I was impressed, and not disappointed with what I saw from the sky!

The new LCCU is further ahead than I thought it would be, at a closer look not as ahead as it should be, but it was certainly a big improvement on what I had last seen.

From the sky and even close up the external walls are now painted and as soon as the frames have also been done it will really easy to picture what the building will look like! The thatching is also well on its way, with only a Roundavel missing! What is considerably behind schedule is the electrical installation, but that does not really surprise me! Let's see if it is this time that I get new electrician.

Maybe the lightning bird did make a difference! 5 weeks now to try and finish this one...