Matarango,
(Hello in Djerma)
It’s been a very frustrating couple of days with our main contractor getting further behind and not doing too much to fix the situation. His own programme shows his work being completed by 25th February but the rate he’s going it’ll be 25th April and we obviously can’t accept that as our steel will be here by then. After he is finished we still have some excavation and a lot of hard filling to do inside the building platform so we need him to get on with it. We’re trying to get him to finish off the North end under the cool store so we can then move in and do the drainage and commence the filling while he continues on the abattoir area.
We’ve spoken to them on a number of occasions and have been fully supported by our controller (who happens to be a close friend of the company’s owner) without much success so today we issued them with notice that if their performance doesn’t improve their contract will be terminated.
We’ve had all sorts of assurances and promises which have not come to anything and my patience has now disappeared.
We’ve asked for a doubling of workforce, additional trucks to bring in materials, and a much better system of organising the guys (i.e. do what we tell them to do!)
One of our major problems is not with the guys, who work very well when directed to do so, but with the supervisors who don’t seem to have done this sort of thing before and are powerless (and often clueless) with the owner of the company not allowing anyone apart from himself to order materials and pay for things.
I’m hopeful that tomorrow will bring a significant improvement because if not, we’ll be looking to kick them off and get someone else on board.
We’ve spent the last few days mainly doing steel work and shuttering but also poured the bases for a couple of pads on the strip footing yesterday.
A grand total of 1.4m3 of concrete, a far cry from the 20m3 or so per day we were expecting to be doing by now.
We know they can do it because they’ve done it before but they seem to have lost momentum.
A major contributing factor to the problem is that the owner has gone to Tunisia for a week for eye surgery but he returns tomorrow so we’ll see what happens then.
We’ve also been trying to get the guys to start at 7am. While the sun is only just coming up, it means less time in the winds/dust storms which pick up towards the end of the day.
This has caused problems with ADR (Abdouraman) our driver as he is only paid for 10 hours per day and we’re asking him to work around 14 or 15 from pick up in the morning to dropping off Stan and Lindsay after dinner. I’ve discussed it with Larabas who will, i’m sure sort things out and pay overtime if needs be.
Or he might just tell him to harden up of course.
On the positive side, the drain laying crew are going very well. We took on an additional team so we now have 2 crews both of whom are enthusiastic and keen to learn. As i said before, we’ll take on another few guys and make 3 teams once Stand and Lindsay have these guys working well. Our drainage supervisor is so keen he has even written the word for supervisor on his hi-vis vest.
I may fire his arse for defacing company property.
But, and this is more likely, I’ll give him an Apollo vest to differentiate him from the rest of the crew.
Status is everything here and we find that if we give something to one guy, then everyone else wants one. This was demonstrated the other night when one of the guards saw the guys digging wearing gloves so he decided he needed them as well to ward off the cold at night.
After all, it does get down to nearly 15 degrees so its pretty nippy...
You can imagine our reply.
We’ve now got a couple of pipe runs in the ground- see photo.
And yes, we know it’s not straight but then it’s not finished either before any of you ask!
Work on raising the height of the perimeter wall also continues at a good pace.
We also bought a heap of tools the other day (shovels, picks and a couple of wheel barrows), and some of them are even still in one piece today! It’s not what you’d call quality.
In fact we call it cheap shit but it’s all there is so we have to make do.
Ralph has been busy helping with systems, templates and suchlike and is finalising our site safety plan.
He also bought a mop and squeegee and was discovered washing the kitchen floor at 5am this morning for some unknown reason, even though we have a cleaner.
I think he may have spent too much time in the sun or forgotten to drink enough water.
Either way, we’re all keeping a close eye on him.
We had an unannounced visit today from one of the senior army colonel’s, another guy who didn’t give a name but also the “Inspector General for the state”.
According to the guys on site, he is a very important man indeed and one not to be taken lightly.
This would have been handy to know before he turned up as I was in a meeting with our sparkies when he arrived and made him wait until I’d finished.
The three of them had a chat with Dave and started wondering around the site until i was free, then I took them for a walk around and explained what we were doing, where all the materials were coming from and other excitements.
They seemed pretty satisfied with everything, though if I am found hanging from a lamp post tomorrow morning, you can safely assume I’ve probably said the wrong thing!
When I mentioned that I’ve been trying to buy concrete from the Chinese bridge guys they offered to help out with the negotiations if they could though not sure what this help might involve. More than likely early morning visits from tooled up republican guards to “persuade” them to help us.
Mind you right now, if it means we get our floors poured quicker, i’d be very tempted.....
On the domestic side, Ralph and Dave’s bathroom tap blew apart around 1am this morning.
I’m not sure what was being done in the bathroom at the time to make this happen and I certainly won’t be asking but its yet another in a long line of plumbing issues we seem to be having.
Our chef continues to be reliable which is good. Some interesting meals though- we had mash potato on its own for a starter the other day.
I managed to break the pedal on our exercise bike so that’s gone in for repair.
It has a made in Germany sticker on it and I’m sure the sticker probably was made in Germany.
The rest of the bike however appears to have been designed by a 10 year old illiterate Chinese person and it has all the hallmarks of being built by a factory staffed exclusively with blind, one armed Mongolians.
Stan and Lindsay are immensely comfortable in their luxury 5 star accommodation and they have everything they could possibly wish for.
Or at least that’s how I heard it.
Interestingly, Stan has also been offered one of our guard’s sisters to take back to NZ as a wife. Not sure how Stan’s wife Lyn would greet this idea but i’m sure Stan could talk his way around it.
Although the idea of having to become a Muslim first might put him off.
They come over to villa 1 for dinner every night, and before leaving for their villa, they steal breakfast for the next morning so it works pretty well.
We’ve also found an ingenious way to prevent mosquito and other insect bites.
This involves sitting close to Lindsay as, in spite of taking precautions, he seems to attract them and has a pretty impressive quantity of bites on him.
Interestingly, Stan and Lindsay’s Telecom phones work over here but everyone else’s Vodafone ones don’t.
Finally for today, I’ve attached a pic of the switchboard wiring at the villa and an excellent cable repair on site as another example of the quality workmanship we come across here.
Funnily enough, electrical is one area where we seem to have found a great contractor over here.
Having said that, the key staff have all been trained overseas (Canada and France) and know what we’re talking about when we mention standards.
That’s all for now,
Sa’anjeman
(Goodbye in Hausa)
Me
