Morning all,
Our final day here in sunny and very hot Niamey.
Yesterday we made sure all our guys were paid by the accountant, had the usual discussions about hours/days worked/rates etc and we then took the obligatory group photo (See attached 51).
We then gave away some clothes and a little bit of gear and the boys left the site in our hire car to go and see the Giraffes up at Koure.
See photo 10771 attached for an interesting shot of Coop’s getting a smidgeon too close to a giraffe, who let him know.
From what the boys tell me, Coop was definitely more concerned than the giraffe was!
I did a quick lap around the site, made sure everyone had gone and locked up the buildings. I then drove through the gate for what could be the last time, and took our cleaning lady in to town.
The rest of the day and this morning was pretty low key, spent getting souvenirs, swimming, having a BBQ and moaning about the heat as the power was off from about 8 till 1.
I haven’t mentioned the Power cuts for a while. Over the last couple of weeks, these have become much more prevalent. I often go to sleep at night listening to the sound of next door’s generator, annoyed that AA allowed our landlord to take away the one on this villa before we moved in. Now that it is hotter here, everyone has the aircon going full belt most of the time, along with everyone in Nigeria which is where most of Niger’s power is generated, at least until the Chinese finish the hydro scheme. (assuming they’ve been paid obviously).
The easiest way for Nigeria to satisfy their own demand is to flick off the switch on the Niger feed.
Anyway, they have been occurring usually a couple of times a day at least and last for anything up to about 4 hours. Most inconvenient.
Im writing this on battery power, which is not at all unusual and it will be sent just as soon as the power comes back up, and we’ve reset our wireless for the 9389millionth time.
Tonight we’ll be going into town for dinner, hopefully with Larabas Moudy and a few others, and will then be home to finish packing and leave around 21:30 to head to the airport.
Malcolm John and I are off to Paris at midnight, and Coop and Ash are off to Casablanca at 3am.
Lets hope we return.
I certainly need to as i cant fit all my gear in my bags!
Me
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
8th April 2010 D Day
Morning all,
The Government have not made the promised payment to our client whose incredible level of patience has now run out.
As of today, we are putting a halt to the project and we are pulling out of Niger.
This could be only a temporary thing though I suspect it may be more permanent.
I’d love to be proved wrong on this though, and having just got back from discussing it with Larabas, I do feel a little more confident that we could be back to finish what we’ve started.
Today we poured the final base slab as planned- see photo 94 of it being flooded to prevent cracking.
We also poured our second strip of what will be dunnage blocks and we did a couple of abattoir wall sections.
After the guys had all left for the day, I also took photos 110 and 115 which show the site looking south and north respectively.
Personally I prefer it when there are loads of people and a bit of gear around doing some work but I thought an empty site might be more symbolic.
And yes, I have since washed my footprints off the roof and bonnet of the landcruiser.
Tomorrow will be spent packing up any power tools, hand tools, printers, computers etc along with all our files which will be taken to villa 3 for safekeeping as we have paid six months up front for it.
We’ll also secure all our other materials as best we can inside the compound, in the storage compound and the main building.
The guards and Police will hopefully be kept on if there’s any chance of us coming back as if they go as well, within days everything will be stripped bare no matter how well we secure it.
We’ll then get all our guys together for one final barbeques, that will possibly involve another geep or a shoat.
Or maybe I should try for a cow as it’s our last day.
It’ll be hard telling our guys that it is all over before it is complete though, I’m sure they’ll take it in their stride as they do with all adversity.
Some may not find work for a long time and here, that is a very big issue.
Telling our guys won’t be nearly as hard as it will be to tell the teachers and Kids at Gamkalle 4 school that we possibly won’t be back and therefore won’t be able to do the things we have talked about.
Once the guys have been sent on their way, we will lock everything up and head back to the villas ourselves.
I have the accountant coming back in on Monday and we’ll get all the guys to come in and be paid up to date, and will also double check we have everyone’s contact details just in case we do come back.
We’ve put a lot of effort in to getting our team skilled and we don’t want to have to do it all again.
I’m not sure exactly how I’ll feel when I leave site for the final time, but it will probably be a mix of disappointment, sadness and immense frustration.
There’ll probably be a fair bit of anger that so much effort from so many people here and around the world will have been wasted because of what is essentially an admin issue.
I always think to do something is more effective than doing nothing at all but here they prefer the opposite.
If we do not return then the loss of workload and loss of profit for not only us but all the other companies involved is obviously incredibly important but there is a bit more to it than that.
We started off with simply another project and another challenge but it has developed into something a lot more significant for me and I’d like to think for others working on it as well.
We have commenced an important and at times very difficult undertaking which has tested everyone over here and also you guys back home.
Due to some political lack of decisionmaking and a complete absence of forward vision, we are being forced to walk away from a great project.
The abattoir and the associated pastoral and animal breeding programmes would have been of huge benefit to the state and people of Niger, which is exactly what they need right now.
We have met some lovely but incredibly unfortunate (by virtue of the location of their birth) men women and children who are desperate to get themselves out of poverty and this project, and the future operation of the plant would have made a big difference to them for years to come.
I don’t say this lightly but to some, their very lives depend on exactly this type of investment.
I feel immensely proud of what everyone working on this has achieved so far, and of the enthusiasm shown by everyone on the team who has in the past, or is currently working on the project.
Thank you to everyone involved, I know we would have done something really worthwhile had we been allowed to. We still could do.
Thanks especially to the guys who were trusting and adventurous enough to come over here and also their wives and girlfriends who let them. I know it’s been bloody hard.
Especially when your house is burgled and your husband isn’t there to give support, or when your daughter gets a new boyfriend and you are unable to vet him thoroughly!
Also thanks to the people who have put up with their partners/husbands in NZ and elsewhere being at work till all hours to get things done for us.
I sincerely hope we can return to finish what we have started but even if not, I’m confident that there will be another one of these.
Somewhere.
Sometime.
After all why would we want to stop when we’re this close to getting the hang of it.
Finally, thanks for reading,
Me
PS Apologies for this sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech, it’s not meant to be.
PPS Don’t call us over the weekend, because after we’ve packed up we’re selling the satellite phones and we’re off down the bush bar with our emergency funds to get hammered.........
The Government have not made the promised payment to our client whose incredible level of patience has now run out.
As of today, we are putting a halt to the project and we are pulling out of Niger.
This could be only a temporary thing though I suspect it may be more permanent.
I’d love to be proved wrong on this though, and having just got back from discussing it with Larabas, I do feel a little more confident that we could be back to finish what we’ve started.
Today we poured the final base slab as planned- see photo 94 of it being flooded to prevent cracking.
We also poured our second strip of what will be dunnage blocks and we did a couple of abattoir wall sections.
After the guys had all left for the day, I also took photos 110 and 115 which show the site looking south and north respectively.
Personally I prefer it when there are loads of people and a bit of gear around doing some work but I thought an empty site might be more symbolic.
And yes, I have since washed my footprints off the roof and bonnet of the landcruiser.
Tomorrow will be spent packing up any power tools, hand tools, printers, computers etc along with all our files which will be taken to villa 3 for safekeeping as we have paid six months up front for it.
We’ll also secure all our other materials as best we can inside the compound, in the storage compound and the main building.
The guards and Police will hopefully be kept on if there’s any chance of us coming back as if they go as well, within days everything will be stripped bare no matter how well we secure it.
We’ll then get all our guys together for one final barbeques, that will possibly involve another geep or a shoat.
Or maybe I should try for a cow as it’s our last day.
It’ll be hard telling our guys that it is all over before it is complete though, I’m sure they’ll take it in their stride as they do with all adversity.
Some may not find work for a long time and here, that is a very big issue.
Telling our guys won’t be nearly as hard as it will be to tell the teachers and Kids at Gamkalle 4 school that we possibly won’t be back and therefore won’t be able to do the things we have talked about.
Once the guys have been sent on their way, we will lock everything up and head back to the villas ourselves.
I have the accountant coming back in on Monday and we’ll get all the guys to come in and be paid up to date, and will also double check we have everyone’s contact details just in case we do come back.
We’ve put a lot of effort in to getting our team skilled and we don’t want to have to do it all again.
I’m not sure exactly how I’ll feel when I leave site for the final time, but it will probably be a mix of disappointment, sadness and immense frustration.
There’ll probably be a fair bit of anger that so much effort from so many people here and around the world will have been wasted because of what is essentially an admin issue.
I always think to do something is more effective than doing nothing at all but here they prefer the opposite.
If we do not return then the loss of workload and loss of profit for not only us but all the other companies involved is obviously incredibly important but there is a bit more to it than that.
We started off with simply another project and another challenge but it has developed into something a lot more significant for me and I’d like to think for others working on it as well.
We have commenced an important and at times very difficult undertaking which has tested everyone over here and also you guys back home.
Due to some political lack of decisionmaking and a complete absence of forward vision, we are being forced to walk away from a great project.
The abattoir and the associated pastoral and animal breeding programmes would have been of huge benefit to the state and people of Niger, which is exactly what they need right now.
We have met some lovely but incredibly unfortunate (by virtue of the location of their birth) men women and children who are desperate to get themselves out of poverty and this project, and the future operation of the plant would have made a big difference to them for years to come.
I don’t say this lightly but to some, their very lives depend on exactly this type of investment.
I feel immensely proud of what everyone working on this has achieved so far, and of the enthusiasm shown by everyone on the team who has in the past, or is currently working on the project.
Thank you to everyone involved, I know we would have done something really worthwhile had we been allowed to. We still could do.
Thanks especially to the guys who were trusting and adventurous enough to come over here and also their wives and girlfriends who let them. I know it’s been bloody hard.
Especially when your house is burgled and your husband isn’t there to give support, or when your daughter gets a new boyfriend and you are unable to vet him thoroughly!
Also thanks to the people who have put up with their partners/husbands in NZ and elsewhere being at work till all hours to get things done for us.
I sincerely hope we can return to finish what we have started but even if not, I’m confident that there will be another one of these.
Somewhere.
Sometime.
After all why would we want to stop when we’re this close to getting the hang of it.
Finally, thanks for reading,
Me
PS Apologies for this sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech, it’s not meant to be.
PPS Don’t call us over the weekend, because after we’ve packed up we’re selling the satellite phones and we’re off down the bush bar with our emergency funds to get hammered.........
Friday, April 9, 2010
8th April 2010- D day minus one, today's update
Hello there,
Today was another productive yet hot (47 degrees) and very windy and dusty day.
As you know we have placed and watered and compacted a few hundred m3 of Laterite and have been trying to get this tested by the lab prior to doing our final trim.
The lab guys have finally managed to leave their depot to come and do some density testing using sand replacement, (see photo 84) a method not used elsewhere since Jesus played full back for Jerusalem.
They also brought with them a vibrating table (see photo 83) to compact the concrete in the test cylinders as they don’t have enough energy to tamp them down with a steel rod like everyone else the world over.
And the last person to see a vibrating table had a stegosaurus for a pet.
The next and final section of concrete base slab is ready for pouring at 5am tomorrow morning. The last one looks pretty good given the conditions, though we have had some de-lamination due to the heat build up and possibly a little bit of overworking it though it’s very hard to judge given the speed the top layer on concrete goes off.
The Wrathalls guys are doing a great job in spite of the conditions, and have fitted in really well with the locals.
We also poured another couple of wall sections today in the abattoir and also stripped a long strip of concrete that we are going to cut into blocks(see photo 70) for use as dunnage under pallets and steelwork, once it arrives here from Cotunou where it is being held pending release of payment by the government of Niger.
The payment issue still rumbles on and while we are hoping like crazy that it’ll be sorted out tomorrow, we have to face the reality that it may not be and that we, along with our client of course, must then make plans to stop work.
This has been weighing heavily on all of us here and also obviously on you guys in NZ and will be a huge blow all round if it does not get resolved.
We have a lot of the tricky stuff done now and to be forced to walk away at this stage will be incredibly frustrating.
And very sad.
So let’s hope it will get sorted out and we are able to finish what we have started.
And on that somewhat less than cheerful note, I’m off to bed.
me
Today was another productive yet hot (47 degrees) and very windy and dusty day.
As you know we have placed and watered and compacted a few hundred m3 of Laterite and have been trying to get this tested by the lab prior to doing our final trim.
The lab guys have finally managed to leave their depot to come and do some density testing using sand replacement, (see photo 84) a method not used elsewhere since Jesus played full back for Jerusalem.
They also brought with them a vibrating table (see photo 83) to compact the concrete in the test cylinders as they don’t have enough energy to tamp them down with a steel rod like everyone else the world over.
And the last person to see a vibrating table had a stegosaurus for a pet.
The next and final section of concrete base slab is ready for pouring at 5am tomorrow morning. The last one looks pretty good given the conditions, though we have had some de-lamination due to the heat build up and possibly a little bit of overworking it though it’s very hard to judge given the speed the top layer on concrete goes off.
The Wrathalls guys are doing a great job in spite of the conditions, and have fitted in really well with the locals.
We also poured another couple of wall sections today in the abattoir and also stripped a long strip of concrete that we are going to cut into blocks(see photo 70) for use as dunnage under pallets and steelwork, once it arrives here from Cotunou where it is being held pending release of payment by the government of Niger.
The payment issue still rumbles on and while we are hoping like crazy that it’ll be sorted out tomorrow, we have to face the reality that it may not be and that we, along with our client of course, must then make plans to stop work.
This has been weighing heavily on all of us here and also obviously on you guys in NZ and will be a huge blow all round if it does not get resolved.
We have a lot of the tricky stuff done now and to be forced to walk away at this stage will be incredibly frustrating.
And very sad.
So let’s hope it will get sorted out and we are able to finish what we have started.
And on that somewhat less than cheerful note, I’m off to bed.
me
7th April 2010- Chocolate bars and toffee- today's update
Morning all,
We completed the last of the base slabs this morning with a 12.5m3 pour at the western end which the boys started at 5 am. Photo 69 shows the slab post-finishing having been flooded with water to reduce hydration cracking. We have a small problem in that as fast as we get water onto the slabs, it evaporates due partly to the heat but also due to the rubbish water pressure we have.
The client/Government agreement states that a new larger high pressure supply is to be put in by 1st March 2010, but still no sign. There’s also no sign of the new power supply being commenced which was also due in y the 1st March. I suspect that both of these items have gone the same way as the latest payment. The water supply is probably most critical so we have been talking to the ministry about getting this sorted asap though obviously the focus is on the cash right now.
The other photos all show the abattoir end which is taking shape. Where we can, we have been backfilling and compacting Laterite and are now in need of Stan and Lindsay’s services to finish off the drainage laterals so we can complete backfilling. We’re hoping they’ll be back out in a week and a half but they now both have other commitments as well so need to sort them out first.
Also in the abattoir, we’re continuing the walls which are bloody hard to construct with the rubbish ply and timber we have at our disposal but, all things considered, they look ok so far though would benefit from a bit of grinding off here and some plastering or epoxy coating which we’re looking to get ordered once funds are available.
Speaking of cash, there was a full meeting of all the government ministers today at the Palais de Congress. Our client,along with our lawyer here, had some time booked with the relevant people after their main meeting so we may get some action after this although it’s not looking to flash at the moment.
Our client, whose patience has been fantastic to date, is rapidly coming to a stage where some action will be taken in terms of stopping work.
We stopped for a single day a couple of weeks ago which seemed to galvanise the new Government into doing something but all is quiet again now.
We did have a minister out here last week which was the first time anyone form the new government had visited, to our knowledge. Before the coup we’d get at least two delegations a week of notaries and ministry people coming to have a look and make sure we were doing what we said we were going to.
Temperature seems a bit cooler at the moment, possibly due to the dust obscuring the sun, though it was still 46 degrees today.
Only in Africa part 271377300678336
Speaking of driving, John was pulled over the other day which normally would only involve a small payment but unfortunately this time the guy actually did his job and checked over all the car’s documents which were in order, and also John’s licence. Subsequently, we have new direction on this.
Previously, we’d been told that we could drive on foreign licences as long as we had full insurance, which we do.
They’ve now changed this so John and I went to get our local licences yesterday.
Which you’d think would be fairly straight forward.
But it isn’t.
First, we were directed to the ministry of transport where we had a small altercation in the car park with some useless twat sitting under trees who was being deliberately obstructive car park attendants and then spent 10 minutes finding the right office in a 7 storey building with no ground floor directory, no signs on the doors and no lift which would do what it was told.
The ignorant bitch less than helpful bureaucrat we eventually found looked at our licence as if we had just wiped our bottoms on them (with hindsight, I wish I had!).
She told us we needed first to get them translated. This can only be done by the ministry of foreign affairs so off we went, having first had another slight altercation with the aforementioned car park attendant who was very keen to make our exit as difficult as possible by moving some motorbikes and putting them right behind our car.
We considered backing over the lot but thought this would result in a longer stay at the ministry so did a 193408 point turn and off we went.
Through the minister’s private drive way as this was the only one available.
Ha, that showed them!
We arrived at the Ministry of Foreign affairs (the Niger equivalent of MFat though obviously the one here is a lot more efficient than that in NZ but don’t get me started on that again) and found the right office where we made copies of our licences and were told it would take a week to do the translation. This seemed a little steep given there’s not that many words on either an NZ or a Bahraini licence but there you have it.
As her comedy turn, the admin girl suggested that my fee could be paid for in FCFA, the local currency, but that John’s should be paid in Sterling as his licence has a UK address on it.
Obviously we were just in the mood for some wisecracks by this stage....
Copies were left and cash was paid and the comedian informed us that she’d call us when they were ready. We then have to pick up the translation, go back to ministry of shite car parking, and go through yet more rigmarole, palaver and cost to get our local documents.
Which when they arrive will be a two bit piece of paper, un-laminated, hand written with numerous errors and the photos will be stapled on.
Anyway, we’ve now asked our controller, who knows quite few in government and at ministry of transport, to help us sort this out which he’s promised to do tonight.
Hopefully this will save us any more aggravation.
Tonight’s special subject is uranium.
I thought you may be interested to know what the French are up to here as part of their ongoing exploitation of their old colony;
For the past 40 years, the French state-owned company Areva has been mining uranium for Europe's nuclear power needs in Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth. One local activist is taking on the company, claiming that water and dust have been contaminated and workers are dying as a result of its activities.
The man from Niger had come to speak with the CEO of Germany's biggest bank. Last May, Almoustapha Alhacen was sitting in Frankfurt's Festhalle convention center as he listened to Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann tell his audience that despite the financial crisis, his bank was doing better again. Ackermann spoke of responsibility, and he said that "the market and morality" were not contradictions, but would "harmonize with each other for the benefit of everyone."
But in the desert region where Alhacen comes from, there is no harmony between markets and morality. He wanted to tell Ackermann about it, after a group of critical shareholders had invited him to attend the Deutsche Bank shareholders' meeting. Alhacen, wearing a traditional Tuareg robe, a face veil and a turban, stood out among the other people attending the meeting. He was calm as he walked up to the lectern, his face projected onto a large screen on the wall.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Ackermann," Alhacen began, speaking French with an African accent. He had five minutes to describe to Ackermann the catastrophe he has been fighting for the past nine years. He said he was the founder of an environmental organization in the city of Arlit in northern Niger. He said that Areva, a French company, is mining uranium there. He also described the alleged dark side of Areva's operations: millions of tons of radioactive waste, contaminated water and serious illnesses. And Deutsche Bank was partially connected to this, Alhacen said, because it lends a lot of money to Areva.
Alhacen also spoke of responsibility, just as Ackermann had done in his remarks. Anyone who makes a profit by lending money to the uranium industry, he said, should help "fight the serious problems that have arisen in connection with uranium mining." Ackermann responded by saying that Deutsche Bank cares a great deal about protecting the environment. Alhacen has never heard another word from Deutsche Bank since the Frankfurt event.
Mysterious Illnesses
Alhacen founded his organization, Aghirin Man, nine years ago, when he noticed that many of his fellow workers were dying of mysterious illnesses. In Alhacen's Tuareg language, Aghirin Man means "Protection of the Soul."
Alhacen never went to school, and to this day one of his greatest pleasures in life is to ride a camel. When he is displeased about something, he pulls his veil over his face so that only his eyes remain visible. Aghirin Man's offices in Arlit consist of two rooms next to a tailor's shop. An Austrian couple, who are friends of Alhacen's, donated old computers to the organization. His desk chair is missing an armrest, and red dust coats the furniture.
These two dingy rooms are Alhacen's headquarters in his fight against Areva, a global conglomerate.
Areva, which operates uranium mines and build nuclear power plants, has its headquarters in Paris. Its total sales in 2009 were €14 billion ($19 billion). The company is owned almost entirely by the French state, which was the colonial power in Niger until 1960. The French established their first mining company eight years after Niger's independence. Uranium was deposited in sediments in the region millions of years ago, when it was a river delta. Since 1968, excavating machines have dug more than 100,000 tons of the nuclear fuel out of the ground beneath the Sahara.
The Saudi Arabia of the Nuclear Industry
France sells some of its electricity generated by nuclear power to Germany, and Areva employs 5,200 people in Germany. Every weekend, the players in a German soccer club, 1. FC Nürnberg, which plays in the country's top league, the Bundesliga, run onto the field wearing Areva jerseys. France has 58 nuclear reactors, which generate most of the country's electricity, and the fuel for those reactors comes from Niger. As one of the world's largest uranium suppliers, Niger is to the nuclear industry what Saudi Arabia is to the oil industry.
Uranium from Niger has served as a fuel for Europe's energy supply for 40 years. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Niger has arguably reaped little but misery in return. The country in Africa's Sahel zone is one of the world's least-developed nations. One in four children dies before the age of five.
The conditions in Niger are one of the dirty sides of supposedly clean nuclear energy. The activities there are well hidden from the outside world: The uranium mining takes place in the middle of nowhere. There are bandits in the region who kidnap white people and sell them to al-Qaida. The region was long under martial law because of a rebellion by the Tuareg. Today, Arlit is still accessible only by military convoy.
Recently, however, a Greenpeace team went to Arlit. They brought along Geiger counters, which detected levels of radioactivity that were far higher than they should have been. There are two uranium mines in the area, one near Arlit and the other near the nearby town of Akokan. One is an open pit mine and the other reaches about 250 meters (820 feet) underground -- the world's largest underground uranium mine.
Fighting for Their Share of Revenues
A total of 80,000 people live in the two cities Areva created in the desert to service the mines. There are no paved roads, but there is plenty of reddish-brown dust, which penetrates into every crack and pore. Well water is radioactively contaminated, and precious fossil groundwater is used in the uranium ore processing plant. The region's nomads are finding fewer and fewer pastures for their cattle, and people are affected by fatal illnesses.
Citizens' organizations critical of Areva claim that the little money the company pays to the Niger state remains in the capital or simply ends up in the pockets of family members of the longstanding ex-president. When Alhacen is asked what the mine has done for people, he says: "Nothing -- except radiation, which will be here for thousands of years."
The mines have also contributed to the uprisings, in which the Tuareg rebels use violence in an attempt to get their share of uranium revenues. Niger is a divided country, with the Tuareg living in the north and the dominant Hausa ethnic group in the south. The capital is in the south, and the south controls the country. Uranium revenues from the north are used to buy weapons in the south, which the government then uses to keep the north in check.
And on that informative note, i shall bid you all farewell.
Me
PS there will be a short written exam on this subject tomorrow
We completed the last of the base slabs this morning with a 12.5m3 pour at the western end which the boys started at 5 am. Photo 69 shows the slab post-finishing having been flooded with water to reduce hydration cracking. We have a small problem in that as fast as we get water onto the slabs, it evaporates due partly to the heat but also due to the rubbish water pressure we have.
The client/Government agreement states that a new larger high pressure supply is to be put in by 1st March 2010, but still no sign. There’s also no sign of the new power supply being commenced which was also due in y the 1st March. I suspect that both of these items have gone the same way as the latest payment. The water supply is probably most critical so we have been talking to the ministry about getting this sorted asap though obviously the focus is on the cash right now.
The other photos all show the abattoir end which is taking shape. Where we can, we have been backfilling and compacting Laterite and are now in need of Stan and Lindsay’s services to finish off the drainage laterals so we can complete backfilling. We’re hoping they’ll be back out in a week and a half but they now both have other commitments as well so need to sort them out first.
Also in the abattoir, we’re continuing the walls which are bloody hard to construct with the rubbish ply and timber we have at our disposal but, all things considered, they look ok so far though would benefit from a bit of grinding off here and some plastering or epoxy coating which we’re looking to get ordered once funds are available.
Speaking of cash, there was a full meeting of all the government ministers today at the Palais de Congress. Our client,along with our lawyer here, had some time booked with the relevant people after their main meeting so we may get some action after this although it’s not looking to flash at the moment.
Our client, whose patience has been fantastic to date, is rapidly coming to a stage where some action will be taken in terms of stopping work.
We stopped for a single day a couple of weeks ago which seemed to galvanise the new Government into doing something but all is quiet again now.
We did have a minister out here last week which was the first time anyone form the new government had visited, to our knowledge. Before the coup we’d get at least two delegations a week of notaries and ministry people coming to have a look and make sure we were doing what we said we were going to.
Temperature seems a bit cooler at the moment, possibly due to the dust obscuring the sun, though it was still 46 degrees today.
Only in Africa part 271377300678336
Speaking of driving, John was pulled over the other day which normally would only involve a small payment but unfortunately this time the guy actually did his job and checked over all the car’s documents which were in order, and also John’s licence. Subsequently, we have new direction on this.
Previously, we’d been told that we could drive on foreign licences as long as we had full insurance, which we do.
They’ve now changed this so John and I went to get our local licences yesterday.
Which you’d think would be fairly straight forward.
But it isn’t.
First, we were directed to the ministry of transport where we had a small altercation in the car park with some useless twat sitting under trees who was being deliberately obstructive car park attendants and then spent 10 minutes finding the right office in a 7 storey building with no ground floor directory, no signs on the doors and no lift which would do what it was told.
The ignorant bitch less than helpful bureaucrat we eventually found looked at our licence as if we had just wiped our bottoms on them (with hindsight, I wish I had!).
She told us we needed first to get them translated. This can only be done by the ministry of foreign affairs so off we went, having first had another slight altercation with the aforementioned car park attendant who was very keen to make our exit as difficult as possible by moving some motorbikes and putting them right behind our car.
We considered backing over the lot but thought this would result in a longer stay at the ministry so did a 193408 point turn and off we went.
Through the minister’s private drive way as this was the only one available.
Ha, that showed them!
We arrived at the Ministry of Foreign affairs (the Niger equivalent of MFat though obviously the one here is a lot more efficient than that in NZ but don’t get me started on that again) and found the right office where we made copies of our licences and were told it would take a week to do the translation. This seemed a little steep given there’s not that many words on either an NZ or a Bahraini licence but there you have it.
As her comedy turn, the admin girl suggested that my fee could be paid for in FCFA, the local currency, but that John’s should be paid in Sterling as his licence has a UK address on it.
Obviously we were just in the mood for some wisecracks by this stage....
Copies were left and cash was paid and the comedian informed us that she’d call us when they were ready. We then have to pick up the translation, go back to ministry of shite car parking, and go through yet more rigmarole, palaver and cost to get our local documents.
Which when they arrive will be a two bit piece of paper, un-laminated, hand written with numerous errors and the photos will be stapled on.
Anyway, we’ve now asked our controller, who knows quite few in government and at ministry of transport, to help us sort this out which he’s promised to do tonight.
Hopefully this will save us any more aggravation.
Tonight’s special subject is uranium.
I thought you may be interested to know what the French are up to here as part of their ongoing exploitation of their old colony;
For the past 40 years, the French state-owned company Areva has been mining uranium for Europe's nuclear power needs in Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth. One local activist is taking on the company, claiming that water and dust have been contaminated and workers are dying as a result of its activities.
The man from Niger had come to speak with the CEO of Germany's biggest bank. Last May, Almoustapha Alhacen was sitting in Frankfurt's Festhalle convention center as he listened to Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann tell his audience that despite the financial crisis, his bank was doing better again. Ackermann spoke of responsibility, and he said that "the market and morality" were not contradictions, but would "harmonize with each other for the benefit of everyone."
But in the desert region where Alhacen comes from, there is no harmony between markets and morality. He wanted to tell Ackermann about it, after a group of critical shareholders had invited him to attend the Deutsche Bank shareholders' meeting. Alhacen, wearing a traditional Tuareg robe, a face veil and a turban, stood out among the other people attending the meeting. He was calm as he walked up to the lectern, his face projected onto a large screen on the wall.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Ackermann," Alhacen began, speaking French with an African accent. He had five minutes to describe to Ackermann the catastrophe he has been fighting for the past nine years. He said he was the founder of an environmental organization in the city of Arlit in northern Niger. He said that Areva, a French company, is mining uranium there. He also described the alleged dark side of Areva's operations: millions of tons of radioactive waste, contaminated water and serious illnesses. And Deutsche Bank was partially connected to this, Alhacen said, because it lends a lot of money to Areva.
Alhacen also spoke of responsibility, just as Ackermann had done in his remarks. Anyone who makes a profit by lending money to the uranium industry, he said, should help "fight the serious problems that have arisen in connection with uranium mining." Ackermann responded by saying that Deutsche Bank cares a great deal about protecting the environment. Alhacen has never heard another word from Deutsche Bank since the Frankfurt event.
Mysterious Illnesses
Alhacen founded his organization, Aghirin Man, nine years ago, when he noticed that many of his fellow workers were dying of mysterious illnesses. In Alhacen's Tuareg language, Aghirin Man means "Protection of the Soul."
Alhacen never went to school, and to this day one of his greatest pleasures in life is to ride a camel. When he is displeased about something, he pulls his veil over his face so that only his eyes remain visible. Aghirin Man's offices in Arlit consist of two rooms next to a tailor's shop. An Austrian couple, who are friends of Alhacen's, donated old computers to the organization. His desk chair is missing an armrest, and red dust coats the furniture.
These two dingy rooms are Alhacen's headquarters in his fight against Areva, a global conglomerate.
Areva, which operates uranium mines and build nuclear power plants, has its headquarters in Paris. Its total sales in 2009 were €14 billion ($19 billion). The company is owned almost entirely by the French state, which was the colonial power in Niger until 1960. The French established their first mining company eight years after Niger's independence. Uranium was deposited in sediments in the region millions of years ago, when it was a river delta. Since 1968, excavating machines have dug more than 100,000 tons of the nuclear fuel out of the ground beneath the Sahara.
The Saudi Arabia of the Nuclear Industry
France sells some of its electricity generated by nuclear power to Germany, and Areva employs 5,200 people in Germany. Every weekend, the players in a German soccer club, 1. FC Nürnberg, which plays in the country's top league, the Bundesliga, run onto the field wearing Areva jerseys. France has 58 nuclear reactors, which generate most of the country's electricity, and the fuel for those reactors comes from Niger. As one of the world's largest uranium suppliers, Niger is to the nuclear industry what Saudi Arabia is to the oil industry.
Uranium from Niger has served as a fuel for Europe's energy supply for 40 years. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Niger has arguably reaped little but misery in return. The country in Africa's Sahel zone is one of the world's least-developed nations. One in four children dies before the age of five.
The conditions in Niger are one of the dirty sides of supposedly clean nuclear energy. The activities there are well hidden from the outside world: The uranium mining takes place in the middle of nowhere. There are bandits in the region who kidnap white people and sell them to al-Qaida. The region was long under martial law because of a rebellion by the Tuareg. Today, Arlit is still accessible only by military convoy.
Recently, however, a Greenpeace team went to Arlit. They brought along Geiger counters, which detected levels of radioactivity that were far higher than they should have been. There are two uranium mines in the area, one near Arlit and the other near the nearby town of Akokan. One is an open pit mine and the other reaches about 250 meters (820 feet) underground -- the world's largest underground uranium mine.
Fighting for Their Share of Revenues
A total of 80,000 people live in the two cities Areva created in the desert to service the mines. There are no paved roads, but there is plenty of reddish-brown dust, which penetrates into every crack and pore. Well water is radioactively contaminated, and precious fossil groundwater is used in the uranium ore processing plant. The region's nomads are finding fewer and fewer pastures for their cattle, and people are affected by fatal illnesses.
Citizens' organizations critical of Areva claim that the little money the company pays to the Niger state remains in the capital or simply ends up in the pockets of family members of the longstanding ex-president. When Alhacen is asked what the mine has done for people, he says: "Nothing -- except radiation, which will be here for thousands of years."
The mines have also contributed to the uprisings, in which the Tuareg rebels use violence in an attempt to get their share of uranium revenues. Niger is a divided country, with the Tuareg living in the north and the dominant Hausa ethnic group in the south. The capital is in the south, and the south controls the country. Uranium revenues from the north are used to buy weapons in the south, which the government then uses to keep the north in check.
And on that informative note, i shall bid you all farewell.
Me
PS there will be a short written exam on this subject tomorrow
6th April 2010- The life of Riley- today’s update
Morning all,
Easter Schmeaster is all I can say.
While the rest of the world, including Niamey, have a nice long weekend, things continue apace here.
We’re looking to pour the final section of base slab under the freezer tomorrow starting at 5am (Wednesday) and the section of base under the lamb chiller on Friday or Saturday, InshAllah (if God wills it)
Now that we control the flow of aggregates and cement, it’s a lot easier to plan our pours I can tell you.
This will take care of all the coldstore areas apart from the temporary supports for the steel work, until the panel arrives.
And the large mixer which, apparently, has been checked over and the report is imminent though I’m sure the release of cash will dictate when it goes on the boat.
Laterite filling and compaction continues, as does boxing of more walls in the abattoir area- see photo 64 and 63 for abattoir wall preparation.
Disappointingly, the boys came back on Saturday afternoon from Park W a day earlier than planned. The hotel’s aircon left a lot to be desired so a couple of uncomfortable nights as it is hotter down there than here in Niamey. They didn’t see any Elephants, lions or Hippos (though as they didn’t take to river trip this was unlikely anyway) but did see quite a variety of other wildlife.
Interestingly, my French teacher told me tonight that she went up on Saturday afternoon and saw masses of hippos and elephants, but no lions.
I guess wildlife is like that, peskily moving around with no thought for anyone’s plans...
The old Azawak director’s office and their secretary’s office are now just waiting for furniture to arrive so that the Wrathalls guys can move into the director’s office and our admin people, when they come, can move into the secretary’s office.
On the domestic side, now there are only 2 of us staying in villa 1 so we will go up to have our evening meal in Villa 3, the new large villa, instead of the 3 of them coming to us.
We’ll probably leave the cook, Hassan, stationed at villa 3 from now on and when more people come out we’ll get another cook for villa 1
The pool at villa 3 is now filled, and verified to be not leaking so the pool guy has super chlorinated it and should get the pump going today ready for us to use tonight.
It is quite a bit deeper than our pool and has a high boundary wall around the edge which someone at sometime is probably going to want to jump off. I’ve pointed out the possibility of this jump going wrong, and the consequences if it does- being severely injured in a country with not much in the way of health care and a long way from a good hospital will hopefully discourage people.
A bit more about the famine here from the UN, another site we get Automatic country updates and information from
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 02 Apr 2010
Full_Report (pdf* format - 2.7 Mbytes)
1. INTRODUCTION
Niger is now in the grip of a protracted food crisis, caused by poor or failed harvests, primarily due to erratic rainfall in 2009. In December 2009, a government-led National Rapid Household Survey indicated that 7.8 million people (58.2% of the population) are at risk of food insecurity, of which 2.7 million (20% of the population) have been classified as 'severely vulnerable'1 and 5.1 million as 'moderately vulnerable'. The country's global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate is as high as 12.3% and in some regions exceeds the critical 15% threshold.2 The Nutrition Cluster estimates that 378,000 new cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and another 1.2 million new cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) will be registered in Niger over the next 12 months, if urgent actions are not taken to strengthen the food security of vulnerable households. The national authorities of Niger have declared the country to be in a state of 'critical food insecurity', requiring urgent and large-scale food and nutritional interventions.
This Emergency Humanitarian Action Plan (EHAP) has been produced to highlight the most recent and urgent humanitarian issues in Niger, and support the national authorities' efforts in quickly mobilizing additional funds to provide timely assistance to the vulnerable populations threatened by food insecurity and malnutrition. It is aligned with the national authorities' priorities defined in its 2010 Support Plan and has been developed with the participation of its technical services. In terms of strategy and projects, it is integrated into the West Africa regional Consolidated Appeal (CAP). All projects proposed herein – new and revised – are included in or added to the CAP's overall requirements. In line with the national authorities' priorities, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has prioritized food security and nutritional interventions, supported by selected actions in the health and water-sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sectors, and in logistics. The requirements for the Niger EHAP are US$190,762,464. With $57,845,526 of funding already received (including carry-over), unmet requirements are $132,916,938.
Maybe Auntie Helen, in her new role at the UN, will come over for a visit to see for herself. (that’s Auntie Helen the ex Prime Minister of NZ for those not familiar)
I sat in front of her on a plane once from Auckland to Chch and volunteered to carry her case so she’s bound to recognise me once she gets here.....
And on that piece of frippery, I’m off,
Until next time,
Me
Easter Schmeaster is all I can say.
While the rest of the world, including Niamey, have a nice long weekend, things continue apace here.
We’re looking to pour the final section of base slab under the freezer tomorrow starting at 5am (Wednesday) and the section of base under the lamb chiller on Friday or Saturday, InshAllah (if God wills it)
Now that we control the flow of aggregates and cement, it’s a lot easier to plan our pours I can tell you.
This will take care of all the coldstore areas apart from the temporary supports for the steel work, until the panel arrives.
And the large mixer which, apparently, has been checked over and the report is imminent though I’m sure the release of cash will dictate when it goes on the boat.
Laterite filling and compaction continues, as does boxing of more walls in the abattoir area- see photo 64 and 63 for abattoir wall preparation.
Disappointingly, the boys came back on Saturday afternoon from Park W a day earlier than planned. The hotel’s aircon left a lot to be desired so a couple of uncomfortable nights as it is hotter down there than here in Niamey. They didn’t see any Elephants, lions or Hippos (though as they didn’t take to river trip this was unlikely anyway) but did see quite a variety of other wildlife.
Interestingly, my French teacher told me tonight that she went up on Saturday afternoon and saw masses of hippos and elephants, but no lions.
I guess wildlife is like that, peskily moving around with no thought for anyone’s plans...
The old Azawak director’s office and their secretary’s office are now just waiting for furniture to arrive so that the Wrathalls guys can move into the director’s office and our admin people, when they come, can move into the secretary’s office.
On the domestic side, now there are only 2 of us staying in villa 1 so we will go up to have our evening meal in Villa 3, the new large villa, instead of the 3 of them coming to us.
We’ll probably leave the cook, Hassan, stationed at villa 3 from now on and when more people come out we’ll get another cook for villa 1
The pool at villa 3 is now filled, and verified to be not leaking so the pool guy has super chlorinated it and should get the pump going today ready for us to use tonight.
It is quite a bit deeper than our pool and has a high boundary wall around the edge which someone at sometime is probably going to want to jump off. I’ve pointed out the possibility of this jump going wrong, and the consequences if it does- being severely injured in a country with not much in the way of health care and a long way from a good hospital will hopefully discourage people.
A bit more about the famine here from the UN, another site we get Automatic country updates and information from
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 02 Apr 2010
Full_Report (pdf* format - 2.7 Mbytes)
1. INTRODUCTION
Niger is now in the grip of a protracted food crisis, caused by poor or failed harvests, primarily due to erratic rainfall in 2009. In December 2009, a government-led National Rapid Household Survey indicated that 7.8 million people (58.2% of the population) are at risk of food insecurity, of which 2.7 million (20% of the population) have been classified as 'severely vulnerable'1 and 5.1 million as 'moderately vulnerable'. The country's global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate is as high as 12.3% and in some regions exceeds the critical 15% threshold.2 The Nutrition Cluster estimates that 378,000 new cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and another 1.2 million new cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) will be registered in Niger over the next 12 months, if urgent actions are not taken to strengthen the food security of vulnerable households. The national authorities of Niger have declared the country to be in a state of 'critical food insecurity', requiring urgent and large-scale food and nutritional interventions.
This Emergency Humanitarian Action Plan (EHAP) has been produced to highlight the most recent and urgent humanitarian issues in Niger, and support the national authorities' efforts in quickly mobilizing additional funds to provide timely assistance to the vulnerable populations threatened by food insecurity and malnutrition. It is aligned with the national authorities' priorities defined in its 2010 Support Plan and has been developed with the participation of its technical services. In terms of strategy and projects, it is integrated into the West Africa regional Consolidated Appeal (CAP). All projects proposed herein – new and revised – are included in or added to the CAP's overall requirements. In line with the national authorities' priorities, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has prioritized food security and nutritional interventions, supported by selected actions in the health and water-sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sectors, and in logistics. The requirements for the Niger EHAP are US$190,762,464. With $57,845,526 of funding already received (including carry-over), unmet requirements are $132,916,938.
Maybe Auntie Helen, in her new role at the UN, will come over for a visit to see for herself. (that’s Auntie Helen the ex Prime Minister of NZ for those not familiar)
I sat in front of her on a plane once from Auckland to Chch and volunteered to carry her case so she’s bound to recognise me once she gets here.....
And on that piece of frippery, I’m off,
Until next time,
Me
3rd April 2010 All the world's an igloo- today's update
Morning all,
The guys arrived safely at the park on Thursday night and are no doubt cruising around besieged by vast quantities of wildlife.
Dave safely boarded his plane last night, or at least I dropped him at the airport and talked to him while he was waiting in the departure lounge and hasn’t called since to say he’s missed another flight.
Damm, didn’t mean to say that out loud, sorry Dave.
On site, we spent yesterday issuing ID cards, and sorting out hi-vis vests and safety boots to those that didn’t have them. When we gave the previous contractor the push, he took all his guys PPE gear, and a lot of the guys badges unfortunately.
Our walk behind roller broke down on Thursday, so as of yesterday morning we now have a ride on one and are having to keep a very close eye on the operator to make sure he doesn’t hit any of our pipe upstands (all surrounded by brightly painted wooden boxes see photo 53s), and that he doesn’t damage any concrete edges or run over any of our guys.
At the toolbox meeting on Thursday we again warned all the guys about the need to take extra care now we have a bit of plant on site, as I don’t want anyone to get run over because it just makes a mess of the ground and the roller that we’d then have to waste time cleaning up.
See photo 53 of the roller in action, at a point just before I’d reminded the guys to keep spraying water as it is being compacted. With compaction and a bit of water added the laterite goes down like concrete so we shouldn’t have too many issues passing the density tests which will be done by the lab.
We continue to pour our wall sections in the abattoir- see photo 44 for how we get the concrete up to the top of the shutters without a pump. Paul and Ralph please note, this photo was taken before yesterdays re-issue of hi-vis jackets.
This works very well indeed but is bloody hard work for the guys obviously.
We have finally managed to get project Azawak moved out of their office in our building on site. This week we have given the office previously occupied by their director a good tidy up and are also repainting it. This is quite a large office, with its own bathroom, and will be used by all our subbies starting with Malcolm Coop and Ash from wrathalls to store gear, look at drawings, get out of the sun for a bit etc. This will make a change from being forced to pile up all their gear on the floor of one of the other offices.
We had a planning session on Wednesday to sort out the next few weeks workload, and to make sure that when the cash is released by the government and the steel etc released from Cotunou, that we are ready for it.
We’ll start doing the pads to go under the temporary props for the steel structure next week now we’ve nearly done the filling/compaction inside the coldstore.
Once the boys have finished their filling work, we’ll also make a start on digging the drainage around the outside of the building as once this is done we can then form our hard fill area around the edge of the building for the crane and scissor lifts to run on once they arrive on Cash release day plus about 5 weeks.
We await drawings from NZ for some foundations so we can make a start on the ones for the plant room, rendering building and stock yards as well as the water tank if poss. As soon as the cash is released we’ll get more of our guys back to speed this up.
Speaking of the previous contractor, we met with him Thursday in a bid to sort out his final claim. This was tricky given that all he wanted to talk about was a couple of lengths of pipe that I hadn’t paid him for (Mainly because he hadn’t invoiced for them) and how he was going to get the tax either paid back by us or a refund from the government.
Very frustrating as there are a number of other issues on his claim that I started to go through, and with a reasonable person we could have solved most of them with relative ease, but he refused to even discuss them. He informed me that it is like being at the market where the vendor (him) starts with a high price and the buyer (me) retaliates with a low price, the idea being to reach agreement.
The problem with this is that his high price is bloody miles away from being even remotely reasonable, whereas our assessment is of course more than fair.
As an example, he claimed for bending up some steel which I thought would be a 1 hour job for 2 guys so certified a couple of hours labour for 2 steel fixers. His claim amount is so high that it would pay for one guy to spend an entire day bending a single length of bar.
For some reason he did not like me pointing this out to him. Our controller, and a close friend of the contractors (and various other high ranking people) is entirely on my side and was present at the meeting at my invitation.
Anyway, I’ll be writing back to him, having first run the letter by our lawyer just in case.
Thursday was pay day for our 45 guys.
I decided a while back that we would get our accountant, sanoussi, to do this so that word didn’t get around that we carry vast sums of cash around with us making us more of a target than we are already being rich whiteys.
And by that I mean obviously rich compared to the general populace.
And in fact white when compared to the general populace as well.
And that is Sanoussi, our accountant as opposed to Zanussi, our washing machine.
Because of the vast numbers of unemployed people living in appalling conditions, and the strong desire by most to escape poverty, people trafficking is big business in these parts.
We shouldn’t forget that slavery was only made illegal here in 2003- can you believe that? Only 5 years ago it was perfectly legal to people traffic here.
Even the USA wasn’t trading in slaves as recently as 2003.
Or at least not openly.
Apart from a few foreigners obviously and they of course don’t count in the eyes of most yanks........
Whenever we drive anywhere we get approached by beggars and by people selling phone cards, small Niger flags, boxes of tissues, air freshener, fly spray and other tat, at most of the intersections in town.
They are especially prevalent on the roundabout near the Palais de Justice (law courts) as there are traffic lights on it and we normally have to queue for a while.
There’s a bunch of beggars and kids who hang around here including a disabled guy in a hand operated 3 wheel bike called Kadeah. Unlike most of the beggars, he is always friendly, and wants to talk to us rather than the usual holding out a hand or begging bowl and saying Cadeaux (present) over and over.
He also follows the Koran which states that once you have been given enough for the daily meal, you should stop begging.
I used to have a chat with him on the way to work and would usually finish by telling him I’d sort him out tomorrow but never got around to it so on the last day here on my previous visit I found him and gave him a couple of grand (about NZ$6).
The boys then got to know him a bit while I was away, so now whenever our car comes in to view, he starts yelling “Kiwi, Kiwi, Noo Zeelan” and comes hurtling up to have a chat, often nearly getting run over in the process.
He doesn’t expect to get anything, and just passes the time of day but he is the exception.
It can be quite uncomfortable to sit at intersections ignoring the people tapping away on the windows of the car to get cash for food.
The beggars could be blind, have leprosy polio, malaria or other serious disease, be malnourished, crippled, amputees, have deformed limbs or have any one of a multitude of serious problems to deal with in a country with no health care, and no dole or other state handouts.
There is another guy we come across fairly regularly with elephantiasis (caused by a parasitic worm) who is also in a 3 wheeled bike. His top half looks normal but his legs and feet are grotesquely swollen to the extent that he obviously is unable to walk. His feet would be about the width of my waist and yet he too, always seems to be quite cheerful in spite of the hand he’s been dealt.
Coop, one of our concrete placers, has a great method for dealing with the beggars. He’ll get the tap on the window and as he’s winding it down he’ll pull out his phone and pretend to take a call.
This works every time as the Nigerienne’s are very polite generally and will walk away as soon as he starts talking to his imaginary caller.
Domestically, the pool in villa 2 is now full and not leaking. The pool guys is coming back later today to finish work on the pump so it should be all up and running by the time the guys get back from Park W.
Our logistics manager (though I may have to re-think this title given that we have no logistics to manage at the moment) is also a qualified mechanic so after I got back from site at lunch time today he came round to pick up the car to have a crack at fixing the various faults. I’m a little concerned at how successful this will be as he doesn’t have much in the way of tools or parts but I’d be very happy to be proved wrong.
We tried to get it into the Toyota garage here but were told they don’t do Lexus as they are an American car.
Its correct to say that ours is an American import (the speedo is in MPH) but as Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand and they are made in Toyota factories by Toyota employees I, rather stupidly it seems, assumed it was a Toyota.
My view on this is further reinforced by the fact that it looks like a Toyota land cruiser, has Toyota stamped on the engine, on the VIN plate and on most of the parts.
I say if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck then it’s probably a duck.
Apparently things are a little different here so if it looks like a zebra, walks like a zebra and makes a noise like a zebra then it is obviously a 3 piece lounge suite in luxury pink velour.
And on that slightly surreal note, I’m going for a swim after first vacuuming my laptop.
Bye for now,
Me
The guys arrived safely at the park on Thursday night and are no doubt cruising around besieged by vast quantities of wildlife.
Dave safely boarded his plane last night, or at least I dropped him at the airport and talked to him while he was waiting in the departure lounge and hasn’t called since to say he’s missed another flight.
Damm, didn’t mean to say that out loud, sorry Dave.
On site, we spent yesterday issuing ID cards, and sorting out hi-vis vests and safety boots to those that didn’t have them. When we gave the previous contractor the push, he took all his guys PPE gear, and a lot of the guys badges unfortunately.
Our walk behind roller broke down on Thursday, so as of yesterday morning we now have a ride on one and are having to keep a very close eye on the operator to make sure he doesn’t hit any of our pipe upstands (all surrounded by brightly painted wooden boxes see photo 53s), and that he doesn’t damage any concrete edges or run over any of our guys.
At the toolbox meeting on Thursday we again warned all the guys about the need to take extra care now we have a bit of plant on site, as I don’t want anyone to get run over because it just makes a mess of the ground and the roller that we’d then have to waste time cleaning up.
See photo 53 of the roller in action, at a point just before I’d reminded the guys to keep spraying water as it is being compacted. With compaction and a bit of water added the laterite goes down like concrete so we shouldn’t have too many issues passing the density tests which will be done by the lab.
We continue to pour our wall sections in the abattoir- see photo 44 for how we get the concrete up to the top of the shutters without a pump. Paul and Ralph please note, this photo was taken before yesterdays re-issue of hi-vis jackets.
This works very well indeed but is bloody hard work for the guys obviously.
We have finally managed to get project Azawak moved out of their office in our building on site. This week we have given the office previously occupied by their director a good tidy up and are also repainting it. This is quite a large office, with its own bathroom, and will be used by all our subbies starting with Malcolm Coop and Ash from wrathalls to store gear, look at drawings, get out of the sun for a bit etc. This will make a change from being forced to pile up all their gear on the floor of one of the other offices.
We had a planning session on Wednesday to sort out the next few weeks workload, and to make sure that when the cash is released by the government and the steel etc released from Cotunou, that we are ready for it.
We’ll start doing the pads to go under the temporary props for the steel structure next week now we’ve nearly done the filling/compaction inside the coldstore.
Once the boys have finished their filling work, we’ll also make a start on digging the drainage around the outside of the building as once this is done we can then form our hard fill area around the edge of the building for the crane and scissor lifts to run on once they arrive on Cash release day plus about 5 weeks.
We await drawings from NZ for some foundations so we can make a start on the ones for the plant room, rendering building and stock yards as well as the water tank if poss. As soon as the cash is released we’ll get more of our guys back to speed this up.
Speaking of the previous contractor, we met with him Thursday in a bid to sort out his final claim. This was tricky given that all he wanted to talk about was a couple of lengths of pipe that I hadn’t paid him for (Mainly because he hadn’t invoiced for them) and how he was going to get the tax either paid back by us or a refund from the government.
Very frustrating as there are a number of other issues on his claim that I started to go through, and with a reasonable person we could have solved most of them with relative ease, but he refused to even discuss them. He informed me that it is like being at the market where the vendor (him) starts with a high price and the buyer (me) retaliates with a low price, the idea being to reach agreement.
The problem with this is that his high price is bloody miles away from being even remotely reasonable, whereas our assessment is of course more than fair.
As an example, he claimed for bending up some steel which I thought would be a 1 hour job for 2 guys so certified a couple of hours labour for 2 steel fixers. His claim amount is so high that it would pay for one guy to spend an entire day bending a single length of bar.
For some reason he did not like me pointing this out to him. Our controller, and a close friend of the contractors (and various other high ranking people) is entirely on my side and was present at the meeting at my invitation.
Anyway, I’ll be writing back to him, having first run the letter by our lawyer just in case.
Thursday was pay day for our 45 guys.
I decided a while back that we would get our accountant, sanoussi, to do this so that word didn’t get around that we carry vast sums of cash around with us making us more of a target than we are already being rich whiteys.
And by that I mean obviously rich compared to the general populace.
And in fact white when compared to the general populace as well.
And that is Sanoussi, our accountant as opposed to Zanussi, our washing machine.
Because of the vast numbers of unemployed people living in appalling conditions, and the strong desire by most to escape poverty, people trafficking is big business in these parts.
We shouldn’t forget that slavery was only made illegal here in 2003- can you believe that? Only 5 years ago it was perfectly legal to people traffic here.
Even the USA wasn’t trading in slaves as recently as 2003.
Or at least not openly.
Apart from a few foreigners obviously and they of course don’t count in the eyes of most yanks........
Whenever we drive anywhere we get approached by beggars and by people selling phone cards, small Niger flags, boxes of tissues, air freshener, fly spray and other tat, at most of the intersections in town.
They are especially prevalent on the roundabout near the Palais de Justice (law courts) as there are traffic lights on it and we normally have to queue for a while.
There’s a bunch of beggars and kids who hang around here including a disabled guy in a hand operated 3 wheel bike called Kadeah. Unlike most of the beggars, he is always friendly, and wants to talk to us rather than the usual holding out a hand or begging bowl and saying Cadeaux (present) over and over.
He also follows the Koran which states that once you have been given enough for the daily meal, you should stop begging.
I used to have a chat with him on the way to work and would usually finish by telling him I’d sort him out tomorrow but never got around to it so on the last day here on my previous visit I found him and gave him a couple of grand (about NZ$6).
The boys then got to know him a bit while I was away, so now whenever our car comes in to view, he starts yelling “Kiwi, Kiwi, Noo Zeelan” and comes hurtling up to have a chat, often nearly getting run over in the process.
He doesn’t expect to get anything, and just passes the time of day but he is the exception.
It can be quite uncomfortable to sit at intersections ignoring the people tapping away on the windows of the car to get cash for food.
The beggars could be blind, have leprosy polio, malaria or other serious disease, be malnourished, crippled, amputees, have deformed limbs or have any one of a multitude of serious problems to deal with in a country with no health care, and no dole or other state handouts.
There is another guy we come across fairly regularly with elephantiasis (caused by a parasitic worm) who is also in a 3 wheeled bike. His top half looks normal but his legs and feet are grotesquely swollen to the extent that he obviously is unable to walk. His feet would be about the width of my waist and yet he too, always seems to be quite cheerful in spite of the hand he’s been dealt.
Coop, one of our concrete placers, has a great method for dealing with the beggars. He’ll get the tap on the window and as he’s winding it down he’ll pull out his phone and pretend to take a call.
This works every time as the Nigerienne’s are very polite generally and will walk away as soon as he starts talking to his imaginary caller.
Domestically, the pool in villa 2 is now full and not leaking. The pool guys is coming back later today to finish work on the pump so it should be all up and running by the time the guys get back from Park W.
Our logistics manager (though I may have to re-think this title given that we have no logistics to manage at the moment) is also a qualified mechanic so after I got back from site at lunch time today he came round to pick up the car to have a crack at fixing the various faults. I’m a little concerned at how successful this will be as he doesn’t have much in the way of tools or parts but I’d be very happy to be proved wrong.
We tried to get it into the Toyota garage here but were told they don’t do Lexus as they are an American car.
Its correct to say that ours is an American import (the speedo is in MPH) but as Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand and they are made in Toyota factories by Toyota employees I, rather stupidly it seems, assumed it was a Toyota.
My view on this is further reinforced by the fact that it looks like a Toyota land cruiser, has Toyota stamped on the engine, on the VIN plate and on most of the parts.
I say if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck then it’s probably a duck.
Apparently things are a little different here so if it looks like a zebra, walks like a zebra and makes a noise like a zebra then it is obviously a 3 piece lounge suite in luxury pink velour.
And on that slightly surreal note, I’m going for a swim after first vacuuming my laptop.
Bye for now,
Me
1st April Life on the ocean wave- today’s update
Good Morning everyone, and welcome back to sunny Niger,
Apologies for not boring you to tears sooner, it’s been a busy week with no time for my drivelly updates.
I arrived on Sunday afternoon to what I thought at first was low cloud but then realised it is just dust. Most days the visibility is probably around 400m or so though when the wind picks up we can’t even see the tree 40m from the office door. It gets into everything, including eyeballs, noses and lungs, and has made getting a decent finish on the concrete slabs a bit tricky.
Coming to site on Monday morning was interesting. As I got out of the car with the other guys, most of our workers came over to welcome me back, ask about my trip etc.
This is just another example among many demonstrating how friendly and welcoming the Nigeriennes are on the whole and like to welcome people with open arms.
Of course, like anywhere, they can also be incredibly annoying too but that’s another story.
We have now poured all the coldstore walls and founds, around 180m2 of base slab under the freezers photo 33 shows the last slab poured which was done on Tuesday, laid all the vent pipes see photo 36 and backfilled with no fines (or more accurately not many fines).
We’re well advanced with abattoir walls (photo 23) and also laterite placing and compaction which we should finish entirely by the end of next week.
The lab are due out tomorrow to do their compaction testing, which they do using sand replacement as they don’t have a nuclear density gauge.
I last did a sand replacement about 15 years ago in the UK and it was out of fashion then...
The lab are also preparing our report, following a meeting we had with them earlier this week to find all our missing test results (for slump, aggregate testing and cylinders.
For the record, and Ralphie’s QA, the cylinders are stored on site until the day after casting and are then stripped and placed in a water tank as you’d expect. The temperature of this tank is supposed to be 28 degrees, which seemed high (the standard we used to use was 20+-1.5) but this also fluctuates with regular power cuts.
We’ve been starting our slab pours at 4 am to try to avoid the worst of the dust/wind/heat and our concrete team spends the night before on site as they are unable to get transport here at that time of day.
That’s our local team as Malcolm Ash and Coops our 3 placers from Hamilton spend the night tucked up in the 7 star luxury that is their villa.
We feed them before work, the locals not the Hamiltonians, and give them coffee though we are now carefully regulating the amount of coffee after a couple of interesting incidents earlier in the week.
Speaking of power cuts, we’re getting them every day now as the electricity infrastructure here and in Nigeria, from where most of our power comes, is put under pressure from increased temperatures and dust and also increased draw from the millions of AC units installed next to open doors pointlessly pumping their innards out. The cuts last for anything from a few minutes to an afternoon and are a complete pain in the arse.
Last night in the villa, we had a phase drop out so mine John’s and Dave’s ac units and our bedroom lights stopped working but our sockets were still live. As were the ac units in the lounge. All very strange but then you’ve seen our switch board so you know the sort of electrical issues we come across.
Gave us all more of a shock when it all came back on again in the middle of the night.
Speaking of elephants, we’ve hired another land cruiser for this weekend so the boys can take a well deserved break to Park W, a 10,000 km2 (Yes, that’s ten thousand square kilometres) wildlife park with hippos elephants lions giraffes monkeys etc. And of course a hotel on the outskirts of the park.
It’s about 3 hours drive away so they set off earlier today (Thursday) so they can make the most of the mornings to see the animals that by the afternoon are sleeping under trees.
Bit like a lot of the locals really.
Our land cruiser has had a number of issues which never seem to get fixed. These include Aircon not working steering pump on the way out, brake pads needing to be changed (though one of the fronts was done last week??) lights not working properly, oil light permanently on, door light permanently on, turn engine off immediately or it will smash itself into a million tiny pieces light also permanently on, to name but a few.
I found another one to rent for the weekend for the boys, which is much better than ours, and we’ll hopefully be able to get ours fixed while they are away.
Dave and I and the rest of our team of 49 locals will carry on as normal so work will continue on site.
Yes, that would be the same Dave who flies out on Friday night/Saturday morning, which, for the sharp eyed amongst you is a smidge later than originally planned.
Feel free to ask Dave why this is when he comes into the office for a guest appearance on Tuesday next week.....
Domestically speaking, villa 3, which you’ll recall is a 10 en-suite bedroom manor house, is almost complete. Some issues remain with electrical and water pressure plus we’re in the process of getting the kitchen up to speed and the pool filled now the leak has been repaired but the boys are pretty happy there.
At villa 1 we now have a different chef as you know, following the mysterious departure of Bashir, our last guy, but he seems reasonably competent so far though a bit less grease in the food wouldn’t go amiss.
There’s been a lot of publicity about the job in the papers recently.
We’ve seen one article in one of the local newspapers article saying the “Venezuelans” had done a bunk with the cash and another article from a different paper saying that our client had taken the cash without even turning a single stone on site.
Talk about lazy reporting though, all he had to do was come out and have a look but chose to write a complete fabrication instead.
At the tool box meeting this morning, I assured the guys that firstly the work they’ve been doing for the last few months does in fact exist, secondly that there are no Venezuelans on the site nor have there ever been, and thirdly that no-one has done a bunk with any government cash.
I also outlined the payment situation we currently face but also made it clear that we are confident the interim Government will pay their bills and that job will continue.
I may have mentioned the famine here before. It was expected that around 17million people would be facing severe food shortages this year after a poor harvest.
In spite of the seriousness of this situation, this is talked about in quite an off handed way by the locals. It happens fairly regularly, the last one being in 2005, and most people belive that if it is God’s way then so be it. Life is pretty cheap around these parts and death and poverty are handled with some nonchalence as the frequent and expected events that they are.
In fact, it came up in my French lesson this week. We were discussing how to say something which was conditional on something else, and our teacher used the example “when the famine hits hard, people may come into the city for food”.
You kow youre in a pretty harsh environmen when you hear people talking like this on a regular basis.
I prefered my, possibly less appropriate, example of “if i had the cash, i’d own a large yacht in the carribean which i’d keep alongside my mansion.”
Below is a report from one of the many websites i subscribe to in order to keep a close eye on the situation here;
Relief officials say nearly 60 percent of families in Niger are facing food shortages because of poor rains. Some people are now leaving their villages, heading toward the capital in search of food. In the village of Begorou Tondo, people are loading their possessions on to donkey carts for the 100-kilometer walk to the capital looking for food.
This young woman says there is simply nothing left to eat at home. She says her family has no choice but to eat the leaves of plants growing on the side of the road, because there is nothing left to eat. They have no food, she says, and her parents have not received help from anyone.
Village chief Nouhou Senou says poor rains ruined this year's crops. Senou says this year, people in Begorou Tondo harvested nothing, so they all have to rely on God. The village has big problems, he says, the famine is really here.
Last year's poor rains are also hurting people who live off cattle. Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda says livestock production is down 16 million tons because of a shortage of grazing. Cereal production for animals is 13 percent lower than 2008.
Cattle herder El Hadj Abdoulaye Saleh says people have no choice but to sell off livestock they can no longer feed. Saleh says everything relies on rain. Shepherds do not want to get rid of their cattle but they have to. It is not because they want to.
The United Nations says at least 200,000 children in Niger face severe acute malnutrition requiring hospital treatment. Niger's government says more than 45,000 cases were recorded by the middle of March. That is double last year's figure.
Dr. Hamidou Hamadou is chief of epidemiology at Tera Hospital. He says they are averaging about 20 cases of severe acute malnutrition each week.
Niger needs $123 million in international assistance to meet food shortages. The country's new military rulers have spoken publicly about the risk of famine since taking charge in a coup last month. That is a clear break from the approach of former president Mamadou Tandja.
But the instability that food shortages can bring in any society could disrupt Niger's plans for new elections once politicians agree on a new constitution to replace laws President Tandja used to give himself another three years in office. Across the Sahel, the United Nations estimates that poor farmers in Niger, Chad, and northeastern Mali will likely need food assistance at least through the early harvests in August.
And there we have it.
Until next time,
Me
Apologies for not boring you to tears sooner, it’s been a busy week with no time for my drivelly updates.
I arrived on Sunday afternoon to what I thought at first was low cloud but then realised it is just dust. Most days the visibility is probably around 400m or so though when the wind picks up we can’t even see the tree 40m from the office door. It gets into everything, including eyeballs, noses and lungs, and has made getting a decent finish on the concrete slabs a bit tricky.
Coming to site on Monday morning was interesting. As I got out of the car with the other guys, most of our workers came over to welcome me back, ask about my trip etc.
This is just another example among many demonstrating how friendly and welcoming the Nigeriennes are on the whole and like to welcome people with open arms.
Of course, like anywhere, they can also be incredibly annoying too but that’s another story.
We have now poured all the coldstore walls and founds, around 180m2 of base slab under the freezers photo 33 shows the last slab poured which was done on Tuesday, laid all the vent pipes see photo 36 and backfilled with no fines (or more accurately not many fines).
We’re well advanced with abattoir walls (photo 23) and also laterite placing and compaction which we should finish entirely by the end of next week.
The lab are due out tomorrow to do their compaction testing, which they do using sand replacement as they don’t have a nuclear density gauge.
I last did a sand replacement about 15 years ago in the UK and it was out of fashion then...
The lab are also preparing our report, following a meeting we had with them earlier this week to find all our missing test results (for slump, aggregate testing and cylinders.
For the record, and Ralphie’s QA, the cylinders are stored on site until the day after casting and are then stripped and placed in a water tank as you’d expect. The temperature of this tank is supposed to be 28 degrees, which seemed high (the standard we used to use was 20+-1.5) but this also fluctuates with regular power cuts.
We’ve been starting our slab pours at 4 am to try to avoid the worst of the dust/wind/heat and our concrete team spends the night before on site as they are unable to get transport here at that time of day.
That’s our local team as Malcolm Ash and Coops our 3 placers from Hamilton spend the night tucked up in the 7 star luxury that is their villa.
We feed them before work, the locals not the Hamiltonians, and give them coffee though we are now carefully regulating the amount of coffee after a couple of interesting incidents earlier in the week.
Speaking of power cuts, we’re getting them every day now as the electricity infrastructure here and in Nigeria, from where most of our power comes, is put under pressure from increased temperatures and dust and also increased draw from the millions of AC units installed next to open doors pointlessly pumping their innards out. The cuts last for anything from a few minutes to an afternoon and are a complete pain in the arse.
Last night in the villa, we had a phase drop out so mine John’s and Dave’s ac units and our bedroom lights stopped working but our sockets were still live. As were the ac units in the lounge. All very strange but then you’ve seen our switch board so you know the sort of electrical issues we come across.
Gave us all more of a shock when it all came back on again in the middle of the night.
Speaking of elephants, we’ve hired another land cruiser for this weekend so the boys can take a well deserved break to Park W, a 10,000 km2 (Yes, that’s ten thousand square kilometres) wildlife park with hippos elephants lions giraffes monkeys etc. And of course a hotel on the outskirts of the park.
It’s about 3 hours drive away so they set off earlier today (Thursday) so they can make the most of the mornings to see the animals that by the afternoon are sleeping under trees.
Bit like a lot of the locals really.
Our land cruiser has had a number of issues which never seem to get fixed. These include Aircon not working steering pump on the way out, brake pads needing to be changed (though one of the fronts was done last week??) lights not working properly, oil light permanently on, door light permanently on, turn engine off immediately or it will smash itself into a million tiny pieces light also permanently on, to name but a few.
I found another one to rent for the weekend for the boys, which is much better than ours, and we’ll hopefully be able to get ours fixed while they are away.
Dave and I and the rest of our team of 49 locals will carry on as normal so work will continue on site.
Yes, that would be the same Dave who flies out on Friday night/Saturday morning, which, for the sharp eyed amongst you is a smidge later than originally planned.
Feel free to ask Dave why this is when he comes into the office for a guest appearance on Tuesday next week.....
Domestically speaking, villa 3, which you’ll recall is a 10 en-suite bedroom manor house, is almost complete. Some issues remain with electrical and water pressure plus we’re in the process of getting the kitchen up to speed and the pool filled now the leak has been repaired but the boys are pretty happy there.
At villa 1 we now have a different chef as you know, following the mysterious departure of Bashir, our last guy, but he seems reasonably competent so far though a bit less grease in the food wouldn’t go amiss.
There’s been a lot of publicity about the job in the papers recently.
We’ve seen one article in one of the local newspapers article saying the “Venezuelans” had done a bunk with the cash and another article from a different paper saying that our client had taken the cash without even turning a single stone on site.
Talk about lazy reporting though, all he had to do was come out and have a look but chose to write a complete fabrication instead.
At the tool box meeting this morning, I assured the guys that firstly the work they’ve been doing for the last few months does in fact exist, secondly that there are no Venezuelans on the site nor have there ever been, and thirdly that no-one has done a bunk with any government cash.
I also outlined the payment situation we currently face but also made it clear that we are confident the interim Government will pay their bills and that job will continue.
I may have mentioned the famine here before. It was expected that around 17million people would be facing severe food shortages this year after a poor harvest.
In spite of the seriousness of this situation, this is talked about in quite an off handed way by the locals. It happens fairly regularly, the last one being in 2005, and most people belive that if it is God’s way then so be it. Life is pretty cheap around these parts and death and poverty are handled with some nonchalence as the frequent and expected events that they are.
In fact, it came up in my French lesson this week. We were discussing how to say something which was conditional on something else, and our teacher used the example “when the famine hits hard, people may come into the city for food”.
You kow youre in a pretty harsh environmen when you hear people talking like this on a regular basis.
I prefered my, possibly less appropriate, example of “if i had the cash, i’d own a large yacht in the carribean which i’d keep alongside my mansion.”
Below is a report from one of the many websites i subscribe to in order to keep a close eye on the situation here;
Relief officials say nearly 60 percent of families in Niger are facing food shortages because of poor rains. Some people are now leaving their villages, heading toward the capital in search of food. In the village of Begorou Tondo, people are loading their possessions on to donkey carts for the 100-kilometer walk to the capital looking for food.
This young woman says there is simply nothing left to eat at home. She says her family has no choice but to eat the leaves of plants growing on the side of the road, because there is nothing left to eat. They have no food, she says, and her parents have not received help from anyone.
Village chief Nouhou Senou says poor rains ruined this year's crops. Senou says this year, people in Begorou Tondo harvested nothing, so they all have to rely on God. The village has big problems, he says, the famine is really here.
Last year's poor rains are also hurting people who live off cattle. Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda says livestock production is down 16 million tons because of a shortage of grazing. Cereal production for animals is 13 percent lower than 2008.
Cattle herder El Hadj Abdoulaye Saleh says people have no choice but to sell off livestock they can no longer feed. Saleh says everything relies on rain. Shepherds do not want to get rid of their cattle but they have to. It is not because they want to.
The United Nations says at least 200,000 children in Niger face severe acute malnutrition requiring hospital treatment. Niger's government says more than 45,000 cases were recorded by the middle of March. That is double last year's figure.
Dr. Hamidou Hamadou is chief of epidemiology at Tera Hospital. He says they are averaging about 20 cases of severe acute malnutrition each week.
Niger needs $123 million in international assistance to meet food shortages. The country's new military rulers have spoken publicly about the risk of famine since taking charge in a coup last month. That is a clear break from the approach of former president Mamadou Tandja.
But the instability that food shortages can bring in any society could disrupt Niger's plans for new elections once politicians agree on a new constitution to replace laws President Tandja used to give himself another three years in office. Across the Sahel, the United Nations estimates that poor farmers in Niger, Chad, and northeastern Mali will likely need food assistance at least through the early harvests in August.
And there we have it.
Until next time,
Me
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