Morning all,
Good progress over the weekend. The guys turned up on Saturday with more people/axes, and a few more on Sunday. Tidying up the smaller branches and offcuts of wood is being done by a combination of local people, and the contractor. We’ve also started demolishing the concrete structures.
Out the back of our site office, the drains/water/sewer are now all connected, and we have a pre-casting bed (see photo) ready to pour the lid for the septic tank on Monday. I’m interested to see how they are going to lift them in place but suspect it will involve as many guys as possible, some rope, and a lot of hard work.
All the snags on the wall are now complete. I also got some additional grates put in where the overland flow path exits our site on the eastern corner as the gaps were big enough for people to easily crawl through. They now match those along the southern wall.
We’ve set out the container pad and will pour it this week hopefully. It’ll be a god test of concrete finishing and placing.
I’m also hoping to kick off the guard house this week, subject to approval. We will need this if we are to control entry to the site as there’s currently nowhere for the guards to sit in the shade down by our main gate. Once all the timber has gone from site, we will secure it and will also get rid of the various goats/chickens/children that keep appearing. I think one of the families has moved out though can’t be too sure as they locked up the building behind them. It’ll be good if they have as it will save me going to see them again. I’ll be putting a bit more pressure on the others this week as well.
I’m sitting in the hotel lobby at the moment, watching the Niger soccer team walking through on their way to the conference room for lunch. They are an interesting bunch as you’d expect. A few of them are holding hands with each other, and I’ve seen a fair bit of this around the town as well. As homosexuality is illegal here, and punishable by long jail terms, I suspect it’s just the local way of being sociable.
I’m expecting the server to do its normal Sunday night/Monday morning shut down so am sending this early to make sure it goes without leading to the usual Sunday arvo frustrations that I’ve had for the last 2 Sundays here.
Went for drive in the country yesterday, nothing much to report except that we stopped in the middle of nowhere for lunch, but next to a large crane. God knows what this was doing here- see photos. No buildings around, no sign of any other construction, just a large crane miles from anywhere or anything. All a bit strange. We went over a dry creek bed and I noticed gabions and reno mattresses which looked to be quite well done. Also saw some drainage trenches along the road edge which were formed concrete but with very professionally done stone pitching so another useful bit of info- maybe we could use these for the moonscape retaining, or overland flow diversion.
We also went on a river trip on a boat called a pirogue. These are similar to the narrow wooden boats they use in Asia but here they have a normal outboard (ours was a 50hp merc) instead of those ridiculous things with the long drive shaft they have in Asia.
The plan was to see some hippos but no-one told the hippos we were coming and they had all gone elsewhere for a long weekend. Apparently the best time to see any of the larger game here is around the beginning of march, just before the wet season as the game hangs around the river whereas now because all the lakes etc are full, they wander around more. Useful to know for future excursions. Still, it was a relaxing trip with quite a nice breeze running along the river. As we were heading back to the village at the end of the trip, a fish, about 6 inches long, jumped out of the water and landed next to me. I’ve never seen a piranha up close before, but the teeth on this thing were enormous compared to its size so I suspect it might have been a member of piranha family. I can confirm that they are edible though as it went straight on the BBQ once we got back to the village. Having seen that, I’m glad I didn’t go swimming too although the story about the thing that enters the body via the todger was enough to keep me well away. Regardless of whether or not the story is true!!
It was market day out in the country so on the way back to town I saw some amazingly overloaded vehicles. Saw a ute with 2 bulls in the back and about 5 guys sitting on top of the bulls holding their horns to make sure no-one got skewered though most of the bulls I’ve seen here are incredibly docile and compliant. Also saw a hi-ace van with 9 (I counted) goats on the roof and another load of the sharing the seats and the boot. Quite funny to see the heads of goats and children sticking out of the windows, though the ones on the roof were not at all amused to be up there. Also saw trucks and vans with loads that stuck out by at least 2m- we had to pull off the road altogether at one point when a truck carrying timber went past. I think the vehicle’s width and weight limits are dictated not by law but how much you can physically get on. A lot of the vehicles had their loads secured, taking up most of the space and the humans then climbed on the top or hung off the sides/back. I don’t know how many fall off but it must happen quite frequently I would have thought. Also saw a large convoy of donkey carts. These have lights although no battery to run them, and an exclamation mark sign fitted. They were loaded up with straw and other animal feed piled up around 4 or 5m high. God knows how they get it up there. If you think it’s bad being a human here, I’d hate to be a donkey. They are beaten repeatedly and incredibly hard using a large piece of wood although it doesn’t seem to make them go any faster.
On site, we could easily have snakes or scorpions and god knows what else though on the whole, most of the dangerous animals are more scared of us than we are of them and tend to keep clear. Mark and I watched one of the guys living on our site casually beating a scorpion to death on the building floor with his flip flop so they are around and something we should ensure our contractors are aware of.
Speaking of Mark, as you know he arrives tomorrow which will be good. We’ll make a decision on our accommodation once he’s arrived but as he will be on his own for a while, he might want to remain in the hotel. I also think this will be a good way to speed up the renovations and other work at the villa.
That’s about all to report for now.
Bye
Me
