Morning all,
The guys arrived safely at the park on Thursday night and are no doubt cruising around besieged by vast quantities of wildlife.
Dave safely boarded his plane last night, or at least I dropped him at the airport and talked to him while he was waiting in the departure lounge and hasn’t called since to say he’s missed another flight.
Damm, didn’t mean to say that out loud, sorry Dave.
On site, we spent yesterday issuing ID cards, and sorting out hi-vis vests and safety boots to those that didn’t have them. When we gave the previous contractor the push, he took all his guys PPE gear, and a lot of the guys badges unfortunately.
Our walk behind roller broke down on Thursday, so as of yesterday morning we now have a ride on one and are having to keep a very close eye on the operator to make sure he doesn’t hit any of our pipe upstands (all surrounded by brightly painted wooden boxes see photo 53s), and that he doesn’t damage any concrete edges or run over any of our guys.
At the toolbox meeting on Thursday we again warned all the guys about the need to take extra care now we have a bit of plant on site, as I don’t want anyone to get run over because it just makes a mess of the ground and the roller that we’d then have to waste time cleaning up.
See photo 53 of the roller in action, at a point just before I’d reminded the guys to keep spraying water as it is being compacted. With compaction and a bit of water added the laterite goes down like concrete so we shouldn’t have too many issues passing the density tests which will be done by the lab.
We continue to pour our wall sections in the abattoir- see photo 44 for how we get the concrete up to the top of the shutters without a pump. Paul and Ralph please note, this photo was taken before yesterdays re-issue of hi-vis jackets.
This works very well indeed but is bloody hard work for the guys obviously.
We have finally managed to get project Azawak moved out of their office in our building on site. This week we have given the office previously occupied by their director a good tidy up and are also repainting it. This is quite a large office, with its own bathroom, and will be used by all our subbies starting with Malcolm Coop and Ash from wrathalls to store gear, look at drawings, get out of the sun for a bit etc. This will make a change from being forced to pile up all their gear on the floor of one of the other offices.
We had a planning session on Wednesday to sort out the next few weeks workload, and to make sure that when the cash is released by the government and the steel etc released from Cotunou, that we are ready for it.
We’ll start doing the pads to go under the temporary props for the steel structure next week now we’ve nearly done the filling/compaction inside the coldstore.
Once the boys have finished their filling work, we’ll also make a start on digging the drainage around the outside of the building as once this is done we can then form our hard fill area around the edge of the building for the crane and scissor lifts to run on once they arrive on Cash release day plus about 5 weeks.
We await drawings from NZ for some foundations so we can make a start on the ones for the plant room, rendering building and stock yards as well as the water tank if poss. As soon as the cash is released we’ll get more of our guys back to speed this up.
Speaking of the previous contractor, we met with him Thursday in a bid to sort out his final claim. This was tricky given that all he wanted to talk about was a couple of lengths of pipe that I hadn’t paid him for (Mainly because he hadn’t invoiced for them) and how he was going to get the tax either paid back by us or a refund from the government.
Very frustrating as there are a number of other issues on his claim that I started to go through, and with a reasonable person we could have solved most of them with relative ease, but he refused to even discuss them. He informed me that it is like being at the market where the vendor (him) starts with a high price and the buyer (me) retaliates with a low price, the idea being to reach agreement.
The problem with this is that his high price is bloody miles away from being even remotely reasonable, whereas our assessment is of course more than fair.
As an example, he claimed for bending up some steel which I thought would be a 1 hour job for 2 guys so certified a couple of hours labour for 2 steel fixers. His claim amount is so high that it would pay for one guy to spend an entire day bending a single length of bar.
For some reason he did not like me pointing this out to him. Our controller, and a close friend of the contractors (and various other high ranking people) is entirely on my side and was present at the meeting at my invitation.
Anyway, I’ll be writing back to him, having first run the letter by our lawyer just in case.
Thursday was pay day for our 45 guys.
I decided a while back that we would get our accountant, sanoussi, to do this so that word didn’t get around that we carry vast sums of cash around with us making us more of a target than we are already being rich whiteys.
And by that I mean obviously rich compared to the general populace.
And in fact white when compared to the general populace as well.
And that is Sanoussi, our accountant as opposed to Zanussi, our washing machine.
Because of the vast numbers of unemployed people living in appalling conditions, and the strong desire by most to escape poverty, people trafficking is big business in these parts.
We shouldn’t forget that slavery was only made illegal here in 2003- can you believe that? Only 5 years ago it was perfectly legal to people traffic here.
Even the USA wasn’t trading in slaves as recently as 2003.
Or at least not openly.
Apart from a few foreigners obviously and they of course don’t count in the eyes of most yanks........
Whenever we drive anywhere we get approached by beggars and by people selling phone cards, small Niger flags, boxes of tissues, air freshener, fly spray and other tat, at most of the intersections in town.
They are especially prevalent on the roundabout near the Palais de Justice (law courts) as there are traffic lights on it and we normally have to queue for a while.
There’s a bunch of beggars and kids who hang around here including a disabled guy in a hand operated 3 wheel bike called Kadeah. Unlike most of the beggars, he is always friendly, and wants to talk to us rather than the usual holding out a hand or begging bowl and saying Cadeaux (present) over and over.
He also follows the Koran which states that once you have been given enough for the daily meal, you should stop begging.
I used to have a chat with him on the way to work and would usually finish by telling him I’d sort him out tomorrow but never got around to it so on the last day here on my previous visit I found him and gave him a couple of grand (about NZ$6).
The boys then got to know him a bit while I was away, so now whenever our car comes in to view, he starts yelling “Kiwi, Kiwi, Noo Zeelan” and comes hurtling up to have a chat, often nearly getting run over in the process.
He doesn’t expect to get anything, and just passes the time of day but he is the exception.
It can be quite uncomfortable to sit at intersections ignoring the people tapping away on the windows of the car to get cash for food.
The beggars could be blind, have leprosy polio, malaria or other serious disease, be malnourished, crippled, amputees, have deformed limbs or have any one of a multitude of serious problems to deal with in a country with no health care, and no dole or other state handouts.
There is another guy we come across fairly regularly with elephantiasis (caused by a parasitic worm) who is also in a 3 wheeled bike. His top half looks normal but his legs and feet are grotesquely swollen to the extent that he obviously is unable to walk. His feet would be about the width of my waist and yet he too, always seems to be quite cheerful in spite of the hand he’s been dealt.
Coop, one of our concrete placers, has a great method for dealing with the beggars. He’ll get the tap on the window and as he’s winding it down he’ll pull out his phone and pretend to take a call.
This works every time as the Nigerienne’s are very polite generally and will walk away as soon as he starts talking to his imaginary caller.
Domestically, the pool in villa 2 is now full and not leaking. The pool guys is coming back later today to finish work on the pump so it should be all up and running by the time the guys get back from Park W.
Our logistics manager (though I may have to re-think this title given that we have no logistics to manage at the moment) is also a qualified mechanic so after I got back from site at lunch time today he came round to pick up the car to have a crack at fixing the various faults. I’m a little concerned at how successful this will be as he doesn’t have much in the way of tools or parts but I’d be very happy to be proved wrong.
We tried to get it into the Toyota garage here but were told they don’t do Lexus as they are an American car.
Its correct to say that ours is an American import (the speedo is in MPH) but as Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand and they are made in Toyota factories by Toyota employees I, rather stupidly it seems, assumed it was a Toyota.
My view on this is further reinforced by the fact that it looks like a Toyota land cruiser, has Toyota stamped on the engine, on the VIN plate and on most of the parts.
I say if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck then it’s probably a duck.
Apparently things are a little different here so if it looks like a zebra, walks like a zebra and makes a noise like a zebra then it is obviously a 3 piece lounge suite in luxury pink velour.
And on that slightly surreal note, I’m going for a swim after first vacuuming my laptop.
Bye for now,
Me
