Morning all,
Easter Schmeaster is all I can say.
While the rest of the world, including Niamey, have a nice long weekend, things continue apace here.
We’re looking to pour the final section of base slab under the freezer tomorrow starting at 5am (Wednesday) and the section of base under the lamb chiller on Friday or Saturday, InshAllah (if God wills it)
Now that we control the flow of aggregates and cement, it’s a lot easier to plan our pours I can tell you.
This will take care of all the coldstore areas apart from the temporary supports for the steel work, until the panel arrives.
And the large mixer which, apparently, has been checked over and the report is imminent though I’m sure the release of cash will dictate when it goes on the boat.
Laterite filling and compaction continues, as does boxing of more walls in the abattoir area- see photo 64 and 63 for abattoir wall preparation.
Disappointingly, the boys came back on Saturday afternoon from Park W a day earlier than planned. The hotel’s aircon left a lot to be desired so a couple of uncomfortable nights as it is hotter down there than here in Niamey. They didn’t see any Elephants, lions or Hippos (though as they didn’t take to river trip this was unlikely anyway) but did see quite a variety of other wildlife.
Interestingly, my French teacher told me tonight that she went up on Saturday afternoon and saw masses of hippos and elephants, but no lions.
I guess wildlife is like that, peskily moving around with no thought for anyone’s plans...
The old Azawak director’s office and their secretary’s office are now just waiting for furniture to arrive so that the Wrathalls guys can move into the director’s office and our admin people, when they come, can move into the secretary’s office.
On the domestic side, now there are only 2 of us staying in villa 1 so we will go up to have our evening meal in Villa 3, the new large villa, instead of the 3 of them coming to us.
We’ll probably leave the cook, Hassan, stationed at villa 3 from now on and when more people come out we’ll get another cook for villa 1
The pool at villa 3 is now filled, and verified to be not leaking so the pool guy has super chlorinated it and should get the pump going today ready for us to use tonight.
It is quite a bit deeper than our pool and has a high boundary wall around the edge which someone at sometime is probably going to want to jump off. I’ve pointed out the possibility of this jump going wrong, and the consequences if it does- being severely injured in a country with not much in the way of health care and a long way from a good hospital will hopefully discourage people.
A bit more about the famine here from the UN, another site we get Automatic country updates and information from
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 02 Apr 2010
Full_Report (pdf* format - 2.7 Mbytes)
1. INTRODUCTION
Niger is now in the grip of a protracted food crisis, caused by poor or failed harvests, primarily due to erratic rainfall in 2009. In December 2009, a government-led National Rapid Household Survey indicated that 7.8 million people (58.2% of the population) are at risk of food insecurity, of which 2.7 million (20% of the population) have been classified as 'severely vulnerable'1 and 5.1 million as 'moderately vulnerable'. The country's global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate is as high as 12.3% and in some regions exceeds the critical 15% threshold.2 The Nutrition Cluster estimates that 378,000 new cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and another 1.2 million new cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) will be registered in Niger over the next 12 months, if urgent actions are not taken to strengthen the food security of vulnerable households. The national authorities of Niger have declared the country to be in a state of 'critical food insecurity', requiring urgent and large-scale food and nutritional interventions.
This Emergency Humanitarian Action Plan (EHAP) has been produced to highlight the most recent and urgent humanitarian issues in Niger, and support the national authorities' efforts in quickly mobilizing additional funds to provide timely assistance to the vulnerable populations threatened by food insecurity and malnutrition. It is aligned with the national authorities' priorities defined in its 2010 Support Plan and has been developed with the participation of its technical services. In terms of strategy and projects, it is integrated into the West Africa regional Consolidated Appeal (CAP). All projects proposed herein – new and revised – are included in or added to the CAP's overall requirements. In line with the national authorities' priorities, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has prioritized food security and nutritional interventions, supported by selected actions in the health and water-sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sectors, and in logistics. The requirements for the Niger EHAP are US$190,762,464. With $57,845,526 of funding already received (including carry-over), unmet requirements are $132,916,938.
Maybe Auntie Helen, in her new role at the UN, will come over for a visit to see for herself. (that’s Auntie Helen the ex Prime Minister of NZ for those not familiar)
I sat in front of her on a plane once from Auckland to Chch and volunteered to carry her case so she’s bound to recognise me once she gets here.....
And on that piece of frippery, I’m off,
Until next time,
Me
