Matarango,
(or Hello in Djerma)
It’s been a busy few days with some good progress.
As you know from previous emails, the office is now up and running, and we have excellent internet access. Although this could change at any minute as things tend to do here for no apparent reason.
All 3 gates are now hung, and they even open and close without too much difficulty. My plan is to keep the south western one open and lock the others for now to contain the site. We’ll then station some security at the main gate and have the rest patrolling.
Or sitting under a tree asleep or drinking tea, just whatever they prefer.
The wall is just about done, they have nearly completed the first lot of snags but I have given them some more items on the more recently completed sections. It’s looking pretty good and seems structurally quite sound, which is promising for upcoming works.
The site toilets/showers are well underway and I am amazed at progress. I was stupid enough to ask the contractor when the excavator was arriving to dig the septic tank and soakage holes. He laughed and pointed to a single, very lean and fit looking guy with a shovel who managed to dig it out in a single day. I've now taken him on permanently.
Attached is a photo of what they put inside the hole- pretty simple really.
Also attached is a photo of the toilet used by the family living in our big building. I’ve walked past this a number of times but thought it was some sort of animal enclosure- there are goats and chickens everywhere on site. Then yesterday I wondered past and there was one of the female residents squatting down doing her business. I think I was more bothered about this than she was, as she didn’t move a muscle, or at least not one that I was looking at. I’ve also seen people, women and men, in the middle of the street having a leak, and one guy doing so in the middle of a busy intersection.
I’m waiting for pricing to come in for the earthworks which was due later today, but I have now extended this to Monday at 4pm following a late request from one of the contractors.
I ended up going to 5 contractors, the 4th of which was suggested to me by the client at the last minute, and the 5th was an even more last minute request from another firm Mark and I met last time but weren’t too sure about.
We shall see how the next steps go and whether we are left to our own devices or not in terms of the final decision.
I’ve also been to the surveyor to sort out his future role and to try and extract the 3D survey info the engineers are so keen on having as they are unable to produce an earthworks plan or isometric drawings without it. Who knows what they did before 3d was developed.
We’ve had a few goes at getting this info but I spent a good couple of hours there with a really helpful guy this morning called Harouna and I think we now have what they need.
Slightly embarrassing was that I brought a virus on to his computer via my memory stick! I think this was picked up from the computer at the hotel business centre where I got a few things scanned the other day. Interesting that their virus checker picked up on it but ours did not although I suppose it may have done so but just not notified me about it. The surveyor cleaned up the memory stick for me so all is ok now.
And no, I don’t need any jokes about picking up virus’s from the girls in the hotel thanks!
They are also coming to site next week to do set out for me.
The surveyors, not the girls from the bar.
I went to the bank today to try and open an account. Of course this also took a lot of hand waving and discussion but eventually I was taken to the managers assistant who was extremely helpful and I now have all the forms and requirements to enable us to get an account opened up. This will probably only be used for our sundry type expenses and in case of emergencies. It will also save us carrying large amounts of cash around.
Also went to an equipment dealer to talk about forklift purchase and general hire equipment. I will add prices onto the worksheet I sent earlier this week but would suggest the plan A option of bringing them in will be the one we go with. This company are also able to service them and provide parts etc for the forklifts and any trucks we purchase so useful contact to have. They have also had the cleanest and most professional looking mechanical workshops and mobile mechanics that I’ve seen so far.
I have found that once I get to speak to right person, things usually happen as I need them to. The problem is finding out who the right person is. As an example, at the forklift dealers I spoke to one guy sitting with a bunch of other loafers at a desk by the main entrance. He then directed me to the girl on a desk in the corner of the room. She gave me a security pass and opened a secure door and directed me to another girl in an office out back. I waffled away to her for a while and she then directed me to the right guy who was very helpful. Consequently what should have been a quick chat turned into more of a mission. Quite interesting though in a frustrating sort of way.
Apparently, I speak French like a French man. I took this to be quite a good thing but have since been assured that it isn’t.
The Nigerienes have their own version of the language and are not too keen on their old colonial masters who seem to have made a habit of tucking them up with dodgy deals in the past.
As my French is far from fluent, I sometimes need a bit of a hand if the organisation I’m meeting with doesn’t speak any English at all. I made the mistake of taking along a local translator, along to a site meeting on Wednesday. She spent most of the time standing there saying “Wattt?”in an aggressive manner rather than actually translating what we were talking about.
When she did talk, she went on for quite a long time telling them her version of what was required, speaking in Djerma so I had no idea what she was saying. I am sure her version will be completely different to what I want and unfortunately this was with Sobafor, the clients recommendation.
Fortunately though, the schedule is in French so there shouldn’t be any confusion in the final pricing.
Because of the translator, the meeting took about twice as long as it needed to, which isn’t a good thing when you’re standing outside in the 40plus degree heat and sun. I’ll be trying to avoid doing that again as my other encounters have gone significantly better even with the language difficulties.
Anyway, Lesson learned, won’t be taking her again unless there’s really no other choice.
As an aside, Niamey has been hosting a sort of fashion week event. Not sure what it’s all about but when we got back to the hotel on Tuesday night, there were hoards of people/army/stick-insect type supermodels and general chaos. Assuming that my fan club had somehow located my whereabouts, I got out of the car expecting to be mobbed but was, surprisingly, ignored by the crowd.
About 2 seconds later, the president turned up in his S class Merc so I made a hasty exit just in case he wanted a word about why we hadn’t started construction yet!
I was coming up from dinner in the lift on Thursday night and 4 scrawny models hopped in giggling and squealing to each other. As if that wasn’t unnerving enough, they were all a good 6 inches taller than me and a couple of them looked as if they used to be a different gender. I was very pleased when the lift stopped at my floor I can tell you.
Why the bloody hell they would have a fashion show here is beyond me. The locals that I have spoken to also don’t want it and get quite stirred up when talking about it as they see it as a bunch of wealthy foreigners, mainly French, coming to town for no benefit to the locals and a waste of money which could be much better spent elsewhere.
The models staying in the hotel that I’ve seen, are coincidentally about the same build as a lot of the locals though of course the models do it because they want to not because they have no access to decent food.
Not the first thing you’d expect to come across in the country ranked at the bottom of the economic development league tables.
That’s all from me for now,
Kalhanfo,
(which is Goodbye in Djerma)
Patrick
