Morning all,
As I write it is 29.5 in the office and 17% humidity and a cosy 38.8 outside.
First of all, today’s lesson, always ensure that you have checked your pockets for mobile phones before leaping into swimming pools. This has been learnt the hard way by someone here who shall remain nameless.
But as a clue, his name begins and ends with a D.
And for those of you who are alphabetically challenged, it wasn’t me or mark. Sounds like the first cabbage award of 2010.
We tried drying it out in a bowl of rice- a tip given to us by Andrew, our security guy, but this did not do the trick unfortunately.
A frustrating couple of days as we wait for our containers. The tricky bit has been for us to find out exactly where they are at any moment. Obviously the cell phone network between the port in Benin and here is not as extensive as we’d like it to be but we have managed to keep in touch with the first two are currently in Niamey being cleared and should be on site later this afternoon for unloading. The third is somewhere between Niamey and the border with Benin having had a number of punctures and truck breakdowns on the way. Our not so fresh out of the factory crane and forklift sit idle as we wait for them. We’ve got the operators helping to chop down trees until the container arrives though they’d prefer to be sleeping under the tree.
We’ve engaged our contractor to do the foundation and early concrete work. Actually when I say we have engaged them, we’ve done it on behalf of the client. They will arrive tomorrow for thorough induction and briefing and we’ll then work closely with them to ensure they know exactly what we expect and how we do things. Crucial will be that they don’t pour any concrete while we are not here. We have clearly told them this and have also advised them that if someone didn’t listen and they do pour any while we are away they’ll be pulling it out again.
Dave is setting up his profiles today and will be joined by contractor and the surveyor tomorrow to get the excavation underway.
The levelling contractor continues his remedial work, as do the guys working on the guard house and our bathrooms. This has been a slow process to date, but hopefully everyone now understands what we will/wont accept.
The compound area has been levelled and all the rubbish and a lot of the unsuitable sand has been stockpiled to make space for our deliveries.
We’ve got Andrew from the security company, staying with us at the moment. He has had a thorough look at the various villas, hotels and the site (and the inside of a bar last night) and will be reporting back to us in the New Year. We have received their country report which has been circulated for review. Andrew has given us some good advice and it has been great to have a third party with knowledge of the area giving us a heads up. Most of what we’re doing on the security side will be related to if the situation changes as it is reasonably ok now but things could escalate very rapidly as is often the way in these parts.
There’s a large demo planned the day after we all leave, fortunately, to protest against the president staying in power following his constitution change and subsequent dissolution of parliament and imposition of emergency powers. We’ll keep an eye on this obviously.
Speaking of security, the army were supposed to be here yesterday to have a look around and assess how many guards we’ll need. We’ll continue to chase this and it becomes especially important once our gear has arrived here. We have our private security guards too and have trained them how to log people in and out, and given strict instructions on who can and can’t enter the site. It seems to be working as so far they have stopped the client from entering on one occasion, and stopped one of the contractors from taking some pipe off site. It was in fact spare pipe that he had brought but they came to check with us anyway which was great. They haven’t yet moved into their brand new guard house. We will be getting some furniture soon but the contractor has a couple of finishing items to do first.
We’ve looked at another villa which is close to the one we’re currently staying in. This has another 5 bedrooms, 3 with ensuites so we’ll use this for when more people arrive. The swimming pool photo is from this villa.
As a midweek excitement, we went into town to a renowned ex-pat/wealthy locals bar (La cloche) last night. After a couple of beers, we concluded that Tuesday nights are as quiet here as they are in NZ and went home.
Photos- some excellent examples of a couple of carefully made conduits for the AC units in our villa and also a photo showing the strange phenomenon that happens with water here- note the difference in water level from one side of the pool to the other. We think this must be due to our proximity to the equator.....
That’s all for now,
