In ah kwane,
(good Morning in Hausa)
A busy couple of days, we now have the tree clearance underway.
I engaged the site clearance and levelling contractors yesterday and as promised, they turned up this morning, though a little later than expected. And a little less well equipped than id expected. A couple of guys with chainsaws was, I suppose asking too much. I have 5 guys with axes and shovels and they are digging the roots of each tree out manually, and chopping them down with an axe- see photo. The axe isn’t the best either but they certainly work hard given that it’s another 40degree plus day today. I watched on guy whose axe head keeps flying off and this happened about 4 times before he decided to locate and re-insert the peg which holds it in place.
Given their standard safety gear, it was probably just as well they don’t have chainsaws. We have another crew arriving tomorrow to demolish the buildings and dig out all the lumps of buried concrete. This should take till about Tuesday next week and then their grazer/dozer arrives to start the levelling.
Speaking of doing things repeatedly, I was at the laboratory yesterday in the secretary’s office while I waited for the director general (or DG as they’re called). The woman behind the desk was trying to work out why her computer was making a beeping noise every 10 seconds and was pushing all the buttons on the front of the desktop unit in order to stop it. When she came to the disc tray button, obviously the disc tray came out. She looked at this as if an alien had just landed in front of her and she then shoved it back in as hard as she could. As she hadn’t closed it properly, it popped out again. So she shoved it in, but again not all the way so out it came again. She did this 3 or 4 times more with the same result. Now call me juvenile if you will, but I was almost sick from holding in my laughter and went over to help. I pushed the button, and miraculously, given its rough treatment, the tray went in and stayed in. I then plugged her UPS back into the wall socket and it stopped beeping.
She was quite thankful as I’m guessing this had been going on for a while.
The official ceremony has now been postponed as the minister is keen to be here personally rather than be represented by the secretary general or another minister. He’s currently cruising the country inspecting the results of the harvest and is not back till after I go so someone else will probably have to do the speeches instead.
Our surveyor is on site, see photo, picking up the wall, and confirming the accuracy of my pegs and putting in offsets for me. He’s also finishing off the moonscape area to the south of our site and I should have those coordinates tomorrow. Interestingly, the contractor will also be bringing his surveyor (included in his price) to confirm the levels and building positions. You can never have too many surveyors can you?
I’ve passed the final snag list for the wall to the contractor and he is hoping to be completed this week.
The executive bath room work continues, though his plan for completion by the end of this week seems to have been a bit optimistic. They are trenching in a new water line and power to this corner of the building. They’ve just shut the power off so they can do connections etc so I had no wireless for part of the morning and early afternoon.
Don’t have ac either but have been trying not to use it so that I can acclimatise. This is another word for sweat like a pig obviously!
Our security for the site has now started and I have two per shift. These are guys from the local security co who also do the villa. Once we have some gear and materials on site, I’ll up this to 4 guards plus a couple of armed soldiers/police.
Our own Security consultant was going to arrive Friday but will now come next time I am over as it will take 3 weeks to get a visa sorted out in Paris. I will need the client to give me a letter of introduction for him to be able to get his visa.
I Spent some time yesterday with the people living on our site 3 families. We explained that they will need to find another place to live as soon as possible given that we don’t want to be running over children every 5minutes. This went down as well as you can imagine, and we’ll see how long it takes for them to move out. One lot have until 20th December (the ones in the compound house) and the other two families need to go as soon as possible.
I didn’t get lynched this morning which was a good sign, and they still say hello to me so they’re either resigned to the fact they need to move or they are just ignoring it. I’ll give them the odd reminder and see how we get on.
Speaking of Giraffes, I discovered some info on the ones I went to see. Of course they don’t tell you any of this when you pitch up there.
Limited research has been undertaken on giraffe across Africa. Recently, the Niger government and the IUCN/SSC ASG International Giraffe Working Group (IGWG) identified that the West African giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis peralta, is the most endangered giraffe (sub)species in Africa, and was listed in the IUCN RedList 2008 as 'endangered' and of high conservation priority.
The giraffe of Niger are genetically unique. Recent studies indicate that the West African giraffe does not survive anywhere but Niger, including any captive populations. Additionally, the West African giraffe may actually be a distinct species rather than (sub)species based on ongoing research of all populations across the continent. If so, the population is critically endangered and deserves the highest conservation attention as it lives outside protected areas, has no natural predators, and shares its habitat with the local people.
That’s it for today,
I’m off to get some gate keys cut and to sort out our landline connection to the site office which will give us fax but more importantly, decent phone connection that doesn’t cost as much as mobile.
Cheers
Me
