Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Storming the beach...
Here's the team offload at the clinic landing; ready to get dirty. The waterfall was nice, but come Monday morning it was time to do some heavy lifting. After the morning meeting where we laid out goals and plans for the day, the whole gang broke up into three different teams. Mark and Tom were to go up to the water source in the creek and start mapping out a way to divert the stream around the dam location, Peter Schieny was going to head up the Yacht Club team, and the third team was to do the offloading of Alvei plus delivery of goods to the right places. In my original plan this was to take half the day, but our supercharged crew managed it in little over an hour.
By mid-day when I went to check on the creek team they had already diverted the stream (which I thought would take a day or two). Mark and Tom were covered in mud and water but the location of the proposed dam/weir was drying in the sun. I hadn’t even given the guys shovels yet, because they were packed with the other gear that had been delivered to the beach. They had just gone ahead anyway and moved all that earth
Delivery Run #Something
The pipes and cement didn't leave much room for passengers. from the creek bed and re-routed the waterway. I could tell these guys were superheroes and it was only just past noon on the first day.
That afternoon I rented a generator and ran back to the ship for a drill and bits. All were put to use immediately and a few hours later, Mark, Tom, and Nik were fitting rebar into the stone of the riverbed. By the end of the day the dam’s skeletal steel was in place. The team was ready to build forms and pour cement.
The masonry bit punched through the river rock like a bullet through wet tissue paper and this was a bit of a worry for me. I hadn’t thought that the rock would be so soft and began to wonder, "Would the footings hold?" I surely hoped so. Another issue that the afternoon had to do with local politics, promised local materials, and the local labor force.
Here’s the thing…When I first made arrangements with the villages and local chiefs, I agreed to hire two laborers each day for the water system and have two men work at the yacht club. On this first morning of work, the
Diverting the creek
The shovels and bucket came in handy...when they finally got there. The exposed stone is the site of the new weir. men assigned to work at the yacht club either didn’t show up, or walked away shortly after they did. Now last year, Dr. Henk had organized the yacht club as a co-op with the villages. Each person who worked an hour of time was granted one share of the co-op. A problem arose over payment for last year’s labor so nobody showed up to work this time. Some of the men, apparently, were still under the impression that they should be paid. It took a bit of politicking and playing the diplomat, but we reached an arrangement that the men liked and they promised to show up the next day for the job.
Tuesday was a day that I was dreading but I knew that there was no way around it. You see, Tuesday was a day for heavy lifting. The water source is a good distance from the beach and also a good rise in elevation. And then there's the simple truth that bags of cement and buckets of sand get heavier the longer you carry them. In the morning meeting I told the team that the day was set to be a long one.
The plan
Finding filler
Here's Gabs and Victoria fishing for river stones to fill out the cement and sand. was to have the A-team build the forms at the water source while the rest of us carried the cement and sand from the beach like Sherpas. Once all the goods were assembled at the summit, we would start to mix and pour cement. This was the plan…but the best laid plans of mice and men…
Mark and the locals put up the forms far quicker than expected (which I should have expected), and then began making cement as soon as the first batch of sand arrived at the site. Instead of going down to the beach to help carry the sand, they figured that they could mix and pour the cement as the goods came up the hill. This way they could be done twice as fast! Their overzealous nature got the best of us, however, because there were a few things that were overlooked, namely: human fatigue.
As the day wore on, the supply train slowed it’s delivery of sand to the job site. The first runs were made in 30-45 minutes, but as the day wore on and backs wearied, the trip times doubled in length. When I discovered what Mark was up to I
Skeletal Steel
Here's the framework all finished up. Next step: forms. saw the impending fiasco. You see, (for those of you that haven’t had the pleasure and joy of pouring cement) once you start a pour, you can’t stop until the job is done. Otherwise you get cold joints and the whole thing falls to pieces. By mid-day Mark had poured half the dam wall and it was starting to harden. The porters didn’t have nearly enough strength to get the job done however, and they needed a rest. The crew was begging for a lunch break while Mark was demanding more sand (and he needed it fast).
I told the gang that there wasn’t going to be a lunch break till the job was done, otherwise the wall wouldn’t be able to hold back the river when the cement cured. After severe beatings and a few lashes, everyone was persuaded to keep working. I broke out the payroll cash too, and hired an army of additional local laborers to help us make it to the finish line. Hero pack mules of note include the following porters: Gabs, Marie, Nik, George, Tom, Carola (with a record 6 trips), and a dozen locals from Lambul and Fartafo.
At the end
There was carrying..
Tom making the first run with the future forms of the day the dam was poured, the crew was sore, and we were half a week ahead of schedule. Further labor issues arose at the yacht club that day which had to be tamped down, and as a result we scrapped the whole deal with the village. I made a new deal with one individual carpenter to provide the goods. It was not as I would have liked things, because I wanted the whole village to share the income from our purchase of local supplies. In the end, however, I had to go with an individual entrepreneur because he could provide the goods on time for the right price.
Socialism seems to work fine in a place where nobody has a concept of time and only a minority can do math. Western demands on timeframes and schedules, however, require a capitalist level of ruthless efficiency. Ask me later and I’ll tell you how I could write an economic dissertation on the happenings of that evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0743s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mom
non-member comment
Exhausted
I love the "Wrecked" shot. Probably because you're in it ! ;) mom