It’s the hottest weather I’ve ever remembered in my LIFE! What is the point in showering if as soon as I get out I need to get back in again! How do you wear summer clothes in a country where shorts and tank tops aren’t part of the dress code for women unless you are a child, or want to be suggestive, these are the times when I miss Canada. Things are getting busier as I start planning to come home, the poor contractor is having a little heart attack, as the building won’t quite be finished when I leave. We had an interesting discussion about the gutter system and water conservation and the state of the world. We are trying to sort out the finer points of the gutters, trusses and roof points. The air vents are inserted and the building is getting ready for trusses and roof to be put on. It’s getting exciting and seeing what the building will look like finished!!!! We had an inspection after the ring beam (a beam that goes above windows and doors the perimeter of the building with reinforcement inside), which took a week to sort and lots of negotiating. First he was meant to come on a Wednesday afternoon, we had paid the fee and had our receipt and surprise, surprise he never showed. He was away the Thursday and Friday. Monday they have morning staff meeting from 8-12 and said to come after lunch, which is 2pm called at 2pm to make sure he was coming and surprise, surprise he was too tired. Tuesday he came and checked the site and told the foreman we hadn’t paid so he couldn’t sign off on the building and I couldn’t get a hold of him for the rest of the day. Wednesday I went to the office and sat there until he saw me showed him the receipts and paperwork proving we had paid and had everything sorted and made him sign the form so we could continue on. When I asked him what the trouble was yesterday and if everything was fine, why couldn’t we carry on and I would just come in and show him the paperwork he said he did let them continue, which is untrue as the foreman would have carried on. So now that the air vents are down and the wall plates are on, we can have another inspection, which then means 1 more inspection until the certificate is signed that the building is complete and then never again will we have to deal with council or inspectors!!!! A few weeks ago we had a meeting about how we wanted to open the building and what we should do. We thought of having a traditional ceremony like in Canada with First Nations, we thought of having a hand off to a headmaster of a school as it is a education building, we also thought of having a hand off to the Library Board, who will run the building. It was made clear that it would not be handed off to the government or any government body. It was also made clear that a article in the paper needed to go out now before government and the local council started taking credit for something they were not a part of and have made very difficult to complete, and work with. We started noticing council bringing people by showing off their building, which we did want the community to take responsibility for but since council has reneged on their responsibilities so far we have decided to give put it in the hands of the library board made up of people from the community, from teachers, to Lion’s Club members to store owners to parents. This is a problem that I’ve noticed in this country wanting something for nothing, not wanting to help get things up and running but taking the credit, say they are “owed” things, that the west is why they are in trouble. Hopefully with this building the government and council will leave it to the library board and the community and it will thrive.

No I haven’t died… just been really busy, my boss from Canada was here visiting all the countries that The Solon Foundation helps out and he was here seeing our progress, meetings and other such fun things. Then I was busy in Harare buying LED lights and fixtures, which is much harder to do then you think in a developing/3rd worldish country where most electricians here don’t know what LED means. So the electrician we’re using knows what LED means but hasn’t been able to find any so I said I would find them and it was a bit of a challenge but finally SUCCESS! An amazing store called Electrosales, which is more of an all around fantastic any building thing you need store than a electrical only store. And the best part is that it’s not horrific expensive like other stores here of that caliber, which I’m noticing that lots of things here of importance like construction material is more expensive than in Canada, and that prices change like the wind. For example one week cement is $11 a bag the next week $22 a bag. The fluctuation depends on how people are feeling that week and how desperate they think people are and what they think they can get for it. I went to a lighting store that has the latest and has access but for $150 a light/fixture, Electrosales had the a better fixture with the same light for $46 easy decision. But the lighting store knows that people will pay for horrific prices for the latest, when what I really wanted to do was picket outside the store with a sign saying “For a third of the price go to Electrosales”. Finally as it is in Canada, it’s flu season here and I was unable to avoid it and had the flu. Our project now has electrical conduits in the columns. Conduits are the plastic tubing, which the wires go through and the plastic casing which switches and outlets fit in. There is a reason October is called suicide month and I forgot how hot Africa can be. This is why I’d rather be freezing cold then boiling hot, you can always add more layers but you can only take off so many. Thank goodness for frozen ice packs that can be put on necks and lower backs. Even when it’s raining and there are thunder storms and it’s the rainy season, it’s crazy hot and I easily drink 4L of water or more.

Sorry it’s taken a month to update this blog. Things have been picking up and gaining speed. The walls are going up and there are gaps in the walls for the windows and doors and the shuttering (wooden outline) for the arch is being constructed. Minor changes to the building have been made here and there as we go through construction and learning things and discover things about the building. The bricks are manually made, which we have discovered is both a curse and a blessing. The curse is that each brick has to be made perfect or they don’t lock into place like Lego like they should and we run into trouble. The blessing is the mould is brilliant, the bricks are big and thick and sturdy, they have 2 holes going from top to bottom in order to put plumbing and electrical through and any other cables, they don’t need mortar to put them together just click them together and as it is meant to be easy ANYONE CAN DO IT! Theoretically. The clicking mechanism is a brilliant idea… but that’s the issue it’s brilliant in theory. Using humans always creates room for human error. We’re all new at this technology and it’s take months to learn the pros and cons, the benefits and weaknesses. The machine has caused us issues and we contacted someone in South Africa who has used this technology for years and he has had none of our issues. This leads us to believe it’s a “Friday machine”. A Friday machine is built on a Friday when factory workers are thinking about the weekend and not about their job so it tends to have issues. Our bricks are 20% thicker than they are meant to, which means more material and the brick isn’t balanced as it should be structural-wise. The bricks made by men aren’t perfect every time so they don’t all fit perfectly together so the construction workers have to chip away at the bricks to make them fit, this was causing HUGE time delays. So we decided to go against the design and put in some mortar on the top and bottom of the bricks so that the bricks would “click” together and not have to be chipped away saving time. There would still be no mortar on the sides and that has worker out brilliant. In the day and a half they’ve been back from their break huge strides have been made. We might actually finish this building in the 6 weeks I have left here. The weather is getting hotter, which means thunder storms, which I love but zesa does not and we are getting more power cuts. Last week I had 30 hours straight of no power, not thunder storm related just luck of the draw. But all over the country has had bad power in the last few weeks so maybe we’re due for a few days or weeks of good power or that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Timing is everything…TIA (this is Africa)… and on and on with reasons and excuses about the time delays for the project. My permit runs out mid-November and the new timeline is February. The foundations were a learning experience and we didn’t place them the way they are meant to in order to compensate for a double wall that we used. There was some chipping away at the bricks to make them fit but again with a change in orientation we knew that would happen. Now that we are at the walls we thought it would be much faster and easier, click, click, click like Lego but that has definitely not been the case. The septic tank was built using the CMU (concrete masonry unit) and the rate of construction was 1 builder using the CMU’s to 3 builders using Bamba bricks on the walls. I thought the rate of building was faster and it is but after seeing the rate of CMU building I became worried. So we thought maybe switch to CMU’s and increase the rate of building but what would we do with all the bricks we made and we’re less than 3000 from our target of 18000 bricks. So we thought of various ways to improve the system. Part of the issue is human error, we thought about getting an electric sander or mortar grinder and fixing the bricks to uniform size but that just seemed to risky. I suggested talking to the construction foreman who is using the bricks and in charge for the construction workers onsite and ask his opinion. We told him about electric grinder and he said that it wouldn’t only be a human error problem with the brick makers but with his junior guys. He’s watched them use the bricks and their lack of problem solving with rogue bricks. He’s teaching them how to make the best use of them. He thought that the best way to minimize EVERYONE’S error is to put 5-10mm of mortar between the tops and bottoms of bricks, they’d still click but the mortar would compensate for the angle/slope/dimension and chipping issues. We thought this was a great idea but I had questions, how would they match the bricks from walls with no mortar just brick to mortar walls side by side, the change in height would be an issue, also this would change the wall height, which is not a bad thing but needs to be considered. The wall height will be fine as long as it’s shorter than the existing wall height of 3.5m we’re fine. The foreman will know how to meld in the bricks and mortar so it will work out but I’ll keep a close eye and monitor that just to be sure. So we’ll see what the new speed is and if this changes the new timeline and can we finish this by mid- November. I’m seeing doorways and window spaces that really make the building seem real, standing in the offices and seeing that this will be where someone comes everyday to work, and seeing the furniture and the layout of furniture in each office it’s coming together, VERY SLOWLY but it isJ The concrete slab is finished so we’ll see what mortar Bamba bricks look like tomorrow and Wednesday and see how much faster the pace of construction is. At the current rate of construction the contractor thinks it will be end of February until the project is complete. So hopefully adding mortar will speed up the construction process and speed up our timeline. Construction stops for Christmas December 10^th and comes back January 10^th.

I have some news…wait for it… I am staying until November 14^th, my permit runs out on the 19^th so that leaves me 5 days. The project has taken much longer than planned and I’m sure no one is surprised. The bricks are just not the amazing invention we thought/told they would be. The brick as a design is great but the method is not so great. The machine wears and tears easily if you don’t do the process exactly perfect the bricks don’t come out right and don’t fill properly and so they don’t just click. The manual says that any unskilled person can do this and that is just not true. We’re using seasoned, experienced construction workers and they’re have a tough time and it’s taking much longer then expected. What was meant to take 6 months, we’re now looking at a year. The contractor wants to change materials to a CMU (concrete masonry unit). The septic tank is made using the CMU’s and 1 worker is working at the same place as 3 using our bricks. So we’re going to cost out a new plan if built the library using some of our bricks and some CMU’s.

So great news yesterday, we are meant to have an inspection of site after the foundation is done with the DPC (damp proof coarse) just before we lay down the concrete slab. We wanted to do the inspection in stages so we could start putting the concrete slab down so we could start putting up walls, while the foundation on the east side is still being finished. It took forever to finally get the inspector to site then he took a look at the foundations not even finished and the inspector said "keep going I don't need to see anything until the next stage" which is wait for it...the top of windows where typically the lintel goes or in our case the ring beam. The inspector is meant to take a pickaxe and hit the foundation in to make sure it is solid; our inspector did not do this. He was just so impressed with our foundations he just let us move on. That’s the good news, the bad news is wait for it… you guessed it my car. I spent almost 3 weeks in Harare waiting for my car to be fixed but I was able to make a 24 hour trip home with friends, which gave me enough time to check on site, meet a few people, love my dogs, change my suitcase, sort the house and my domestic and get in the car back to Harare. The car needed a service but the fuel pump was shot and even after they changed the fuel pump there was still a problem, which after changing all sorts of things turned out to be the HT leads the connect from the fuel pump regulator to the spark plugs, which control and inject fuel and car goes. I got the car back and was driving it along a fairly busy Harare street and fuel sprayed all over the road from the front of my car. I pulled over and turns out the hose connected to the engine from the fuel came off after it had been replaced. The hose clip was faulty and even after putting it back on every time I turned the car on the hose came off and fuel sprayed. So I had to have the car towed to a friend’s house 5 blocks away and I got a new hose and clip and fixed the car. So the project is progressing and over the next few days I’ll be able to see how fast the walls will go up. There was another issue to deal with. Our property slopes down from the existing building to the new building, this works in our favour as we can use gravity for the sewer and water. So at the lowest point is where the septic tank and soaker way are. There are minimum dimensions to the septic tank and soaker way, the contractor who is also our plumber asked if he could make them deeper and narrower for ease, which as long as they meet the requirements then it’s fine. However because he made them deeper in an already sloping site it caused a few issues when he started building them. The rear veranda now has to be lower requiring 3 steps, a retaining wall and a foundation of it’s own. As well where the piping starts in the existing building that veranda also has to have it’s own retaining wall and foundations. So a little redesigning on my part but problem solved. And that’s my life this month. I am now back and home and back to normal…well almost give me a few more days and the routine will be back and the dogs will stop following me around like I’m going to leave them at any moment, which makes me feel like a bad parent but they’re starting to relax and let me shower in peace!

Huck has been sick he developed tick fever. It took me a few days to notice as he doesn’t eat much to begin with, he started eating even less until he stopped eating, he became really lethargic and just wanted to sleep all day and he was more than his usually cuddly. I thought it was strep throat, which is common among dogs out here, so I was checking his throat and noticed over a few days that his gums were getting white and his eyes were getting whiter, he was going pale, anemic. As I was going to Harare anyways I thought I would take him with me but he started to fail fast so I took him to the Nyanga vet, who was drunk at the time it gave him the shots and the next morning he was returning to normal. I still took him to Nyanga with me to keep an eye on him and good thing I did because he was injected wrong and development a lump at his injection site that filled with fluid that had to be drained.

Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.

My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.

The foundations are done, just waiting for inspection, which I hope to do Monday so that the concrete slab can be poured, more on that very soon...

Huck has been sick he developed tick fever. It took me a few days to notice as he doesn’t eat much to begin with, he started eating even less until he stopped eating, he became really lethargic and just wanted to sleep all day and he was more than his usually cuddly. I thought it was strep throat, which is common among dogs out here, so I was checking his throat and noticed over a few days that his gums were getting white and his eyes were getting whiter, he was going pale, anemic. As I was going to Harare anyways I thought I would take him with me but he started to fail fast so I took him to the Nyanga vet, who was drunk at the time it gave him the shots and the next morning he was returning to normal. I still took him to Nyanga with me to keep an eye on him and good thing I did because he was injected wrong and development a lump at his injection site that filled with fluid that had to be drained.

Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.

My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.

The foundations are done, just waiting for inspection, which I hope to do Monday so that the concrete slab can be poured, more on that very soon...

I went to Harare last week to have Molly’s stitches removed and to see a man about a machine.

Our Bamba brick press is a great machine, it uses manual labour creating jobs and not polluting the environment, as well for rural areas, small communities and individual jobs as it is manual there is no cost of fuel or finding fuel to think of , which sounds small but is HUGE, it doesn’t produce waste, it uses the soil dug up from the ground, the bricks interlock so there is no use of mortar and brick force (mesh that holds the bricks together), the bricks come with 2 holes from top to bottom to allow for piping and electrical eliminating the need for chasing, and the list goes on.

The downside to the Bamba brick press is we are all first time users and it’s been a learning curve for all of us, the manual is very nice and helpful but there is no problem solving information. We have a contact in South Africa who has a machine but hasn’t used it since the late 1990’s and the machine came out in 1995. The Bamba company doesn’t exist anymore, which I have a few theories about and will explain that situation later. We have what I believe is a Friday machine, this means the machine was made on a Friday when all the workers were thinking about going home and having a beer and spending the next 2 days with families or whatever and weren’t really paying attention to what they were doing. The machine itself we’ve had a few issues, we’ve had to weld cracks, add extra bits to make the job easier, it has to be oiled and greased every 10 or so bricks, etc. The brick size is meant to be 300x150x150 ours is 300x180x150, that’s a 20% difference in height, which you might think isn’t much but creates an issue in terms of integrity of a wall. The original size is that the length is twice the width and height so the structural integrity and weight distribution evens out and there isn’t stress in any particular area but with a 20% difference this makes the brick means there is more stress in the height. This doesn’t cause big issues but it’s something we had to consider. Also because the bricks are compressed manual you have to be very precise EVERY brick to make sure it’s perfect if it isn’t then the bricks don’t fit exactly like they should and we’re in trouble. Sometimes parts of the brick at the top or bottom stick to the machine and don’t come off, this can be due to too much moisture in the mix or the machine not being oiled enough. All these little variables that make a HUGE difference.

So I went to Harare to see a man about a machine, the contractor and I had thought about using a hydraulic engine and attaching it to the manual machine in order to a) make bricks faster, we make 140 a day, with hydraulics we could make 1500 a day, b) the compression would be even and each brick would come out the same. We need about 18000 bricks for this project and we’ve done just over 10200 in 6 months. The machine would be a new creation and make the machine more versatile, it could be manual or hydraulic creating options. So back to my theory why Bamba doesn’t exist anymore technology as we all know has come a long way in the last 16 years, why make bricks manual when you can make them hydraulically, it would save on time and money, plus you would have consistent bricks and take away the possibility of human error. So the man in Harare had a hydraulic interlocking brick press that he couldn’t afford to buy and thought I might be able to buy it. You can take a look at it at www.hyrdaform.com model m7twind. If you buy the machine new, including having it imported from South Africa and pay one of their workers to come to train you for 2 weeks it’s $50,000. If you buy this second hand one with a local worker to train you for 2 weeks it’s $12,000. A HUGE difference, this machine is a dual chamber meaning it makes 2 bricks at a time, you control what compression strength you want as well as the how much to compress the bricks, etc. The downside to this machine is the bricks are smaller, there are no holes for utilities and it’s a very different style of brick to what we are already using and the big one WE DON’T HAVE $12,000!!! I was originally told the man owned the machine and we were talking about renting it out for us to better our machine. Also as the hydraform has dual chambers the hydraulic engine is bigger than the size of the machine we have, where would we put it and how would we attach it??? So it was a nice idea but not what we need, so we’ll keep plugging away and perfecting the system we have and continue to learn about our manual brick press.

We found the answer to the trouble with the 2mm difference on the brick height. There is a king pin or roller pin that is on the arm that compresses the bricks. This roller is what keeps the lid down and holds everything together. 1 side of the pin was so warn it wasn’t rolling anymore and wasn’t compressing its side of the lid. We had a new one made and installed and TA DA the bricks are now even!!!! So I’ve been going randomly during the day and measuring bricks to check size and consistency and so far so good. The foundation is still slow and they are still working on the west side but now that they know what they are doing, there is now a rhythm and moving at a steady pace. We are still dealing with rebar issues but I am hoping tomorrow or Friday IT WILL BE SORTED! A shipment of science equipment, textbooks, reference books and wait for it… LIBRARY BOOKS came in from the UK. A brilliant NGO called School AID sent a shipment from schools across the country. My job was to go through the books and sort them and find out what was there. There was everything from reference books, to encyclopedia’s to children’s novels, readers, classics like Bronte and Jane Austen and every John Grisham book ever written. Some of them I started flipping through and got caught up reading them, this was an issue for me when I worked in the public library and had to put books back on shelves, I get caught up in books that an hour would pass and someone would come looking for me thinking I had died, blame it on my parents and their love of reading. So now we have to finish the library so we can put these books on shelves and out to the public. It was a good day!!!

So the cost of food has gone up in Zimbabwe, which is hard as people’s wages haven’t/ have gone up. The NEC has increased the wage 17.65% across the board, but this doesn’t work for beggars, guys who sell goes on the road, in the parking lots and domestic staff. This is for the “workforce”. But a litre of juice is $2.50, a litre of milk is $1.50 and veggies have just gone up. So my drink repertoire now consists of coffee and water. My veggie intake in Canada has always been great, I’m a huge fan of salad and at university had 1 a day as well as a veggie with dinner. Here in Zimbabwe with ZESA cuts veggies last a week. Since I grocery shop once a month living in a rural area my veggie intake happens at the beginning of the month, I freeze a few veggies for the end of the month for my left over chili the last 4 days of the month. Luckily this month ZESA has been a bit better then usual, why I don’t ask I am just thankful so my veggies have lasted 2 weeks. The network (phone and internet) has been horrid with the weather (rain, grey sky, clouds, and VERY WINDY) and I’m from BC so I know windy. It’s actually a miracle that we’ve had power but satellites and cables and all that communication technical stuff has just been non-existent.

I spent part of the morning on site meeting with the contractor dealing with issues like the drainage, rebar and windows. So my rebar issue is now SOLVED!! But we now just need to make it work with the budget, that’s a lot harder then it sounds trust me. There is a reason I didn’t become an accountant but maybe I should’ve taken some classes. This is also the reason that companies have many people on a project, each with their own specialty, which makes sense. I just keep telling myself this is ALL LEARNING!

This week in construction has been interesting. We’ve had some issues with reinforcement, the brick machine and brick layout. Some of the reinforcement was never purchased so I’m trying to re-working an alternative and succeeding!!! The brick machine is having some technical issues. Before we started using the machine, it was sitting in the shed of a school in the bush for years. So it hasn’t been used until we started, we did do general maintenance but one of the main pins that controls the arm that presses the lid to make the brick is wearing away and not compressing the brick as much as it should be causing a 2mm difference in the brick. This might sound like a very small margin BUT if the brick isn’t even everywhere then the bricks don’t lock like they are suppose to and we get a lopsided building. Think of a 2.5m high wall, each brick is 180mm high divide 2.5m by 180mm is almost 14 bricks multiply that by 2mm is 28mm, which is a lopsided building. So we’re trying to sort that out and get the machine back to perfection. The brick manual suggests a way to lay bricks for a single wall. The foundation is a double wall and that layout doesn’t work as it creates 2 single walls, which wobble badly, so we tested 2 different ways to interlock 2 walls and TA DA we succeeded. This is the part I enjoy, finding new, creative, and different ways to do things. The way we decided on is MUCH better and is working well. So this brick system is a learning curve for all of us. The technology is old but none of us has any experience with it. The guess and test and experimentation has caused the project to slow down while we figure it out and try all these different ways, we seem to be on a rhythm and it’s slower than we had planned but we are now “cooking with gas” as they say.

So I went to Harare for the weekend as friends of mine are leaving Harare. I was driving from Nyanga to Rusape and was about 16k’s from Rusape when I smelled smoke. Winter is also called fire season as forest fires are set for various reasons. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw smoke coming from the rear light that turns on when the trunk is opened and then… it caught fire, FIRE! So I pulled over and turned off the car, opened the trunk and pulled out my fire extinguisher. It’s traffic law that all cars must have 2 hazard triangles, reflector vest AND a fire extinguisher. It’s the time I wanted to praise the traffic department. I used my fire extinguisher and put out the fire. I then saw smoke coming out the front of the car, not the hood but inside out of the wheel and console, I sprayed the front with a fire extinguisher incase the smoke was leading to a fire. After everything was as aired out as I could get it, I tried to start the car and NOTHING! Then I realized my hazards weren’t on anymore the whole electrical system in the car was shot. I started think about what my options were, luckily I had cell service and called Willie, my colleague in Nyanga and asked him if he knew of anyone in Rusape who could help me. I also called a friend from Harare who was in Marondera for the Bernard Mezeki day, which I was suppose to go to, to also ask if he knew of anyone in Rusape I could use. Willie like a champ came through and 2 hours later I was in Rusape having my car towed to a garage that specializes in auto electrics. While I was waiting for the tow, the mechanic called to ask me questions about my car, the make, model, standard or automatic, fuel injection or carburetor, etc, etc and luckily I knew the answers to all. When he arrived he praised me for actually knowing and getting those questions right. I explained my dad taught me about cars and got me interested in cars not only in real life but by watching James Bond movies. So once I got to Rusape reality sunk in about what really happened and what was I going to do. Rusape is like getting stuck in Hazelton, BC for those of you who don’t know, Hazelton is 45 minutes away from Smithers, BC and is one of those places with a gas station, a grocery store and a Motel 6, if you blink while driving through it, you miss it. What was going to be able to be done about my car in Rusape. He pulled my car apart looking at the electrics from back to the battery in front. The mechanic was surprised the battery was still in tact. It had turned itself off when wires were going nuts, when it should’ve caught fire and blown up, I’m very grateful it didn’t blow up and very lucky. So he took out the burnt wires, there were more than 1 as the 1 that started it was next to other wires, which were starting to melt, so 3 wires were damaged. He fixed 2 wires but left the 3rd, the original out. My friend in Marondera took public transport to Rusape to make sure I was ok, to make sure the car was ok and to make sure I wasn’t being hustled by the mechanic and he actually did the work. So the mechanic said he had fixed the important parts but I would need to come back on Monday for him to finish the job. He needed a part he didn’t have so I had to pick up a part in Harare, luckily my friend was there with me so I had some backup incase anything else happened, which it didn’t!!!!

Monday I came back to Rusape and he looked at the fuse box, which is plastic, which seems really dumb to me as fuses are metal. Anyways the fuse to the rear trunk light was melted into the fuse box and 3 other fuses were starting to melt. He was able to put in a new fuse that was melted in a different location of the car until the fuse box could be taken out and properly sorted out and he put in a new wire so I had an overhead light when I opened my car doors. So my car is driving well now, no light issues and no smoke or fire. But I’ll have to have the fuse box removed and sorted in the near future. I also need the roof of my car re-upholstered as it is burnt and falling off.

Work is going well, that’s my good news!!! The construction workers are learning how to use the bricks and foundation is coming together. We are dealing with a few blips like lack of materials bought, therefore coming up with creative designing off the cuff, construction worker communication, budget issues, which are always a good time but I go to site a few times a day and spend some time learning, walking around, seeing the project come together, talking to the brick makers and construction workers.

I spent the last week in absolute bliss! I was offered an opportunity to go to Mana Pools (pronounced marna), which is the Shona word for 4. So there are 4 pools, well kind of, it’s part of the Zambezi that runs between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This is real camping with tents and metal food containers and fire cooking the works! So we stayed at a secluded camp the closest neighbour we had was a mile away we never saw them, heard them or saw lights, occasional we saw their vehicle. What really impressed me was that the friends I went with, the husband is a vet, which is really helpful living with animals in the bush BUT his son is a professional guide. I was exposed to all sorts of things I never would’ve seen, heard, or known otherwise.

For instance elephants have 6 sets of teeth over the lifetime, the set grows in at the front and moves slowly towards the back of their mouth then fall out as a new set grows in, an elephant life is determined on how long their teeth last, an elephant can live up to 80 years but in places like Mana that are sandy, it causes their teeth the sand down faster, going through the 6 sets faster and thus ending life. I also learned that some elephants are born without tusks. Female lions lead the hunt and kill the prey, the males are last in the pride and once a kill has been made he takes over and gets first bite. Hippos kill more humans than any other animal in Africa! Crocodiles eat once a year unless the kill is easy and available and they only kill in deep waters where they are comfortable and as they also drown their prey to kill it. I learned much more but I’ll get on with the interesting stuff.

Brian, the guide brought a shower, that’s right, a shower. I thought I’d have to bathe in a bucket or in the river or something, don’t laugh I HAVE NEVER BEEN CAMPING AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO. I did have an overnight test run but showering was never an issue. He hooked up a bag with a shower nozzle onto a tree and put up a canvas wall using poles around 3 sides of the shower to create a little room with an open wall that was open to the wildlife. I was told the bathroom was a hole in the ground called a long drop, I got out there and PRAISE THE LORD there was a toilet seat on top so I didn’t have to squat just hover, so basically it was an outhouse.

We went on game drives at various times of the day because you see different things at different times. There are day animals and night animals, 2 complete sets of wildlife, it’s funny to watch the day animals at about 5 or 6 they all leave what they are doing and go home to their trees or dens or whatever like they’re coming home from work. Hippos live in the water, however at night they come out of the water to eat on land, all day and all night you can hear them talking, laughing, burping all sorts going on, I wished I could’ve taped them, it was really funny. At night they would walk through our campsite and you could hear them blump, blump, blump. Hyenas would also come through the site, I never saw them but you could see their footprints in the morning. Baboons are you’re biggest issue during the day, that’s why you lock up EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING and keep your tent closed. During games drives I saw a pride of lions on the hunt, it was amazing and incredible, and how they didn’t even care we were there they just kept going to attack a family of warthogs. It’s not the kill that’s interesting it’s watching them work, the planning, and the timing. We saw painted dogs on a hunt of impala, painted dogs are wild dogs that kind of look like hyenas. The pack was small only 3 and one was lame, they killed an impala but lions got wind of it and scared them off to eat it themselves. We saw loads of elephants; one came daily to eat the bark off a tree at our campsite. One night we were up later than usual and heard a noise in the bush I walked behind Brian as he checked it out and… it was a leopard!!!! It was amazing these green eyes staring back at us and it turns out lions and leopards and any cat really are very skittish animals, unlike hyenas or painted dogs they retreat around humans as a first instinct, so it was a short visit but non the less I SAW A LEOPARD! The only animal I wasn’t able to see first hand was a hyena, oh well next time ☺

Part of constructing a building is “desigining” the inside of the building, the game plan what’s going to happen once the building is built, the resources and such that are going to happen. Part of the inside plan is to have a social outlet, place for people to go instead of the pub (The Village Inn, Troutbeck, Claremont, Mount Clare). There are no movie theatres, coffee shops, place to eat out (except the pubs). This was my suggestion as someone who lives in the village, alone I understand what it’s like. This is one of a few reasons I go to the city for HUMAN CONTACT! I work at home, live at home and spend my nights at home. I am 1 of 5 white people in Nyanga, the other 4 are senior citizens, not that I don’t spend time with them BUT someone my age is 30 minutes away and they have a new born baby. Once a week I get together with friends in the area but in 7 days that’s not much. I also stick out here, everyone knows who I am and where I live, I walk into the village and get hello’s from everyone which is nice to be a part of the community but I like being 1 of a million that no one looks at instead of 1 of 5. I also have talked to others my age in the community and asked what they want most common is a place to go out. One friend goes to Troutbeck on Sunday afternoons for tea just to get out, she’s the district manager of a bank who moved out here in February. She goes to Harare every chance she gets just to have some social contact, this needs to change, especially with the youth as the alternative is becoming politically involved, which is a huge issue out here, friends, family, connections to be involved with the army and ZANPF. Thank goodness for my dogs, that’s right dogs, with an s I got another one, a male, Huck. He was found by a friend on the side of the road, she had him vaccinated and took him to Friends of Animals Foundation, like SPCA, which they also have here but they do something different. FAF keeps him for 2 weeks to see if someone collects him if not he’s open game. There are so many puppies that are not claimed or not adopted and more animals then they can take on, lots are put down. So I took one in, partially as a favor to a friend, partially as it was a sign, partially as he was the only dog Molly didn’t bark at and finally so Molly would have a friend. Huck has shown me how far Molly has come, and how much having 2 dogs makes a positive difference. Huck is 3.5 months old, 2 months younger than Molly and about an inch smaller than here. He’s furry and going to be HUGE and a face almost like a St. Bernard, no one is sure of his breed, I’m told mix with lots of big dogs in the mix.

Monday came around and I went to Council to see what the latest on the drawings was, feeling a bit nauseous thinking what’s the latest snag we’ll hit today. Got there and the drawings had been approved but the application to waive fees had been denied, so I had to find the money to pay for the drawings so they could be stamped so I can continue construction. The money man, Willie is in South Africa so between emails and phone calls we are sorting out the money so that I can pay for the drawings so I can continue construction, thankfully zesa has been accommodating and emailing has not been an issue.

My luck is just garbage!! So I went to pay for the drawing submission, which we failed to get waived. So I went in to find out how much we owed. I was told to come back at 3pm to get the letter of reply explaining why we didn’t get the fee waived. I came back at 3pm with the money and they hadn’t written the letter so I said I wouldn’t pay them until I had the letter so they said they’d get on it and I could wait 90 minutes later, the slowest typist I’ve EVER MET! Slugs type faster it was ridiculous for 3 lines, an address and a signature I waited 90 minutes! So I paid the fee and took the receipt to collect the drawings and it turns out they didn’t charge us for the health appraisal, I asked if they could still give me the drawings and I would bring the money in the morning so we could continue with construction and found out, wait for it… THE DRAWINGS HAVE NOT BEEN APPROVED! They have not been checked, stamped or signed, I thought we dealt with this on Friday when Willie went it guns blazing and asked what the issue was and was told everything was in order, apparently not. So tomorrow will be another day of surprises and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Today was a day of surprises, I went and paid the health appraisal and saw the secretary’s eyes pop out of his head and the running around that followed as he saw me and realized he hadn’t had the drawings approved!!! He promised if I came back at 2:30 he would have it sorted. I came back at 2:40 and…THE DRAWINGS WERE SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIEVERED! We are now back in business. In order to cover ourselves the inspector is coming back out tomorrow morning 8am to re-check the excavation, which will be fine as he originally thought he was checking it for a 2 storey building so pouring of footings begins tomorrow and all is right with the world WOO HOO!!!!! I will be celebrating by chilling out at home eating chili and watching a movie with my dogs Molly and Huck.

I went on my first outdoor camping with a tent experience EVER on Saturday. The Vumba also known as Honde Valley is a shaped like a bowl and traps in the heat. It’s known for it’s coffee, tea, bananas, mangos, lemons and avocadoes. You can get 100 bananas for $1! Friends of mine have bought a plot of land, out there, which is considered hard to come by and people kill for. It cost him $90 for the land and only $40 of it was for the actual property the rest was to the Chief, the King, the king’s wife, the assistant who took him around, the man who sold him the land and the Council. He has a year to put a building on the land, any building it can be a toilet, a round hut anything as long as there is something built otherwise it goes back to the Council and someone else can buy it. I learned how to pitch a tent, which was easier than I thought it was going to be. When we got to the land there was a goat tied to a tree, which became dinner!!! We only had the meat from the goat but I was told that if you wrap the intestine around the stomach and cook it on a spit over the day it’s a delicacy and really tasty. I was happy we didn’t have time to cook the intestine while we were there as that was a bit more than I was willing to do.

The project is at a bit of a standstill, Council is dragging their heels about re-approving our drawings now that the building is single storey. By law Council has 3 days to approve drawings but we are now at a week. Council was at a conference Thursday and Friday last week, this Wednesday was Africa Day and on and on. I am told today Thursday I can pick up the drawings at 4pm. This causes an issue as the construction team is not able to continue to work and time is being wasted!! But we hope for the best and I hope to get good news by the end of the day.

The construction team is putting the rebar or reinforcement bar together, which they have laid out in the excavated foundations, I went to take a look and check it out and it looks awesome!!! It’s really cool to see designs take shape and to see what the drawings, the math and all the years of school look like in the practical.

I went to see the head of the department of construction and he wanted me to wait 15 minutes while he looked at the drawings I wasn’t sure what 15 minutes was going to accomplish. Then he called me into his office and asked questions and made changes. This time it seems to be harder then when we put the drawings in the first time for approval! When you submit drawings you submit 4 sets, 2 for the Council, 2 for site if you want extra drawings anywhere then you submit those as well. Originally we submitted 5, 2 for them, 2 for us., 1 for me The contractor has 1 not signed by Council, which is allowed but can’t be used for construction, which he used for reference as his team had 2 onsite. I did the 4 for the library amendments as Council needs only to keep 2. When I went in this afternoon, the head of department asked me for the original drawings so he could compare them to the changes, I wanted to scream he should’ve done that before I came to collect the signed copies but also he has reminded me numerous times why Council needs 2 copies so he should have 2 sets to use and should be able to get them without asking me for some. So now I will give Council 1, site 2 and me 1 since Council can’t seem to keep the drawings they have and I am more reliable. Me being my perfectionist, work control freak self, I have a signed copy for myself, which I will bring to tomorrows meeting incase he can’t find his, which is most likely as Council is the most disorganized place I’ve been to in the government sector!!!

I went to the Council’s office Friday morning to find out…wait for it… that the original drawings weren’t approved!! They were signed but not stamped, when we submitted the drawings we also submitted an application to have the fees waived as this is a community building, this was September of last year and we were told that it would have to go through full council for a decision. There have been 2 full council sessions since then and no decision about the waiver. So I was told I’d have to wait until Monday for the head of the department to talk to the CEO of Council to ask where to go from here as we were constructing a building that technically hadn’t been approved. I had numerous questions like How did they do an inspection if the building wasn’t approved or tell us to go ahead with construction or tell us to send in changes after the building site had changed. I wanted to just yell and say all sorts of non-helpful things but I figured that wouldn’t help me at all, so instead I went to my local guy and my savior when it comes to all things work related in Zimbabwe, Willie. I went to Willie and explained the new development as he gets daily updates from me, and he was not impressed. He drove to Council during the full council meeting and pulled the head of the department out of the meeting and gave him a what for YEAH!!!! MY HERO!!! I was so proud and impressed, he asked what all the questions were about, did we miss something, what did he want. He said everything was fine and no problems he just needed to find out what to do about the drawings that weren’t approved and how to get the application waivers sorted. So 8am Monday morning I am to pick up approved drawings with no hiccups and application waivers ALL OF THEM approved and sorted. I was also concerned if they had missed our first application with 2 full councils what about the applications that were suppose to be checked during this full council!!!!

So we’ll just have wait and see what happens on Monday, although Willie is amazing I’ll believe it when Council hands me the drawings!!!!!

The last 2 weeks have been a bit scattered. I spent Easter and the following week in Harare for HIFA, which was great, however I ended up spending another week in Harare for the car. I went to pick up a friend from the airport and noticed a horrible noise the car was making. I was like something was going to fall out the bottom of the car and I could feel it in the pedals. So I called the mechanic who comes to pick up your car from wherever you are. He took it for a test drive around the block brought it back and said that it had to be towed, it wasn’t safe to drive, OOPS! So he had the car for about 10 days turns out the fan belt was destroyed as well as the tensoner, he took the suspension apart as well as I had told him I had some work done on the shocks, boots and cv joints and the shocks we sliding around and 2 of the 4 boots needed to be replaced. So I also asked for it to be serviced. Grant is who usually looks after my car, he’s good at explaining things and showing me in the car what’s wrong, he also gives me all the parts he took out and shows why they needed to be replaced. So after 2 weeks of the city I came home to Nyanga yesterday, I noticed a HUGE difference driving the car back. The last weekend I was in Harare my old roommate who now lives in Harare whom I was staying with suggested I go with her to Kariba for a break. The car’s in the shop and you need some r’n r was her rational. So I agreed. Kariba is damn that separates Zambia from Zimbabwe along the Zambezi if you go farther up the Zambezi you reach Victoria Falls. It’s not very populated and there isn’t much there but the bush. There are lodges and cabins that range from rustic to The Ritz, and by rustic I mean rustic. We were somewhere in the middle, a small cottage on the lake where the hippos came onto the front lawn to eat the grass, I could open my widows and watch them. The zebras would lay in the yards in herds and just sleep or sun bathe. When the hippos come out at night you are suppose to stay indoors as they can very vicious and can easily kill, but we just stood in the door way and they didn’t take any notice. Hippos eat 40kg of grass a day, which surprised me as I didn’t see 40kg’s worth of grass anywhere much less feed the dozen that were there. There were also crocodiles but they stayed in the lake, which is a good thing as well as loads and loads of birds. There are several little islands in the lake, one called Starvation island, which during the low season animals go out there for food but there isn’t any and they stay too long looking and when the water rises they get stuck out there and starve. In 1977 Operation Noah took place to rescue all the animals off the islands back to the main land so they could eat, some mother’s of animals killed their young to save them as they didn’t understand what was going on, everyone once in a while still today small rescues are done. Kariba is very hot, one of the hottest places in Zimbabwe but as we are heading into winter I found it as hot as the rest of Zimbabwe is during the summer plus there was a breeze.

The good news, no GREAT news is that excavations are finished AND site inspection was approved!!!!! I didn’t have any doubts about the quality of work or if it was right but I did have concerns on how long it would take to get the inspector to site and if he would want a bribe to pass us BUT it was all fine and we are now moving on to the pouring of footings, rebar and foundations.

This week kicks off HIFA (Harare International Festival of the Arts). Embassy’s send their top acts from all over the world for a week in culture, it ranges from various kinds of music (classical, reggae, pop, jazz, opera), to various kinds of dancing (ballet, hip hop, flamenco, ballroom, African), to play’s, picture art in the National Gallery and more. The whole city shuts down for the week, people take off work and spend hundreds of dollars and for a week you forget you are in Africa, you forget that the troubles that are going on and Zimbabwe gets together and has a great time! The last 2 weeks there has been numerous national holidays, April 18^th was Independence, April 22-25^th Easter, May 2 Worker’s Day, so the construction team is off for 2 weeks. The construction team comes from all over the Nyanga area so they live on site and work in sets, 2 weeks on 5 days off. So in order to get their days off and all the holiday’s in they are off until May 1^st, so I thought I could do some work in Harare, get a change of scenery and enjoy some of HIFA. I started my HIFA extravaganza with the opening show, which I was told is the best show every year, and it was great, it’s done by the HIFA team with singing and dancing. It’s extremely political and they get away with it. A friend of mine works for HIFA and I asked how they get away with it, it turns out since the festival is supported by all the embassy’s and brings in HUGE revenues HIFA can pretty much do what they want. They are also very good at being subtle or at least not standing on a soap box preaching about the government, they use music, singing and dancing to do the job. My second show was from the Irish Embassy, a traditional band called Kila, very good, really entertaining and just a good time. The next night I was given a complimentary ticket for the opera gala. This was unbelievable, it was snippets of various operas from “The Marriage of Figaro” to “The Magic Flute” to a whole bunch of German operas I’ve never heard of before. It was done by the Britain’s Embassy with help from the local opera choir. It was really nice. Finally on Friday I went and saw the Zimbabwean National Ballet do a mix of ballet, jazz, contemporary, hip hop and tap. The company is mostly white, which surprised me it was a bit disappointing, there were 2 or 3 that were fantastic but only out of a dozen or so.

Currently the manual brick press is making 100 bricks a day, which is nowhere near where I thought it was going to be. I talked to the “professionals” in South Africa and they said we should be making 4-500 a day? So we went over the system on the phone and found a few places we could speed things up but it wouldn’t slow us down that much. So the contractor and I had a light bulb idea, what if we put a hydraulic system onto the manual system to speed up the process AND it would make the brick press both manual AND hydraulic to make it more versatile. The contractor asked a farmer if we could borrow their hydraulic brick press to try our idea. We could easily remove the hydraulics and replace them at a later time. This got complicated because we thought we had it sorted and the farmer decided that if the new system worked she wanted the new system and it just became ridiculous SO I had another light bulb idea, what if we found someone to fabricate the hydraulic system for us from scratch especially for our machine and just cut out the middle man, AND I asked around AND my colleague and local contact in Nyanga knew someone in Harare, who specializes in custom made brick presses so tada!!!! I fixed the problem, maybe on the phone it sounded very promising, we’ll see what happens in person when I met him. After meeting him I am really excited, his work shop was unbelievable, the innovation of his machines was incredible. He had created a machine that you put all your rusty nails, brackets and such in turn it on and it cleans them without chemicals or water it was amazing. You dream it, he can build it or he can dream it and build it. So he’s coming up to Nyanga and look at the machine, watch the guys use the machine and see what he can come up with, he’s my kind of person!!!

We HAD liftoff on April 7^th for a few mere moments until someone had an idea to change the plan. Instead of going larger and do add-on’s like the offices and conference room that were never part of the original idea. So why not do just the library and lay it out so that in future the rest could be added. It then would become an incentive for the community to use the library and show that more investing in the community would be a worthwhile project. So we made the library bigger and got rid of the rest and sent it to the contractor. THEN I hear from the contractor that the materials are bought and paid for and we’ve paid for the area of the original building, which would’ve been helpful knowledge back when we had the original building that didn’t quite fit and I would’ve made it fit!!!! So now I went back to the original plan and did some CPR. Now I have the original building with some changes, AND I suggested that we kit out the library and leave the rest, explain we are doing what we originally agreed to and the community needs to kit out the offices and conference room by donation or fundraising or whatever, but then they take responsibility for the building. So it’s been a week of back and forth and I feel like nothing has been accomplished. But it’s not just about the drawings I seem to be doing many jobs and spend the day doing various things and accomplish little in various areas and not making any big strides in fewer areas.

MY DAY

5:30am. Up to let Molly out

6am. Clean up her room, make her breakfast, she eats, I shower, eat and get ready for the day

7am. The phone starts to ring, usually calls from the contractor with the days events, my local colleague with the days events, my job to fit it all in

8am. Collect emails and send emails from the evening before

9am. Site meeting

10am. Deal with morning emails

11am. Start working on drawings

12pm. Lunch

1pm. Work on various things that have come up in the morning, currently that’s game plan and ideas and furniture for the interior of the building

4pm. Write out new emails and send them out

5pm. Check in with local colleague for any updates or issues

6pm. Dinner

7pm. More drawings and dealing with afternoon emails

9pm. Let out Molly for the last time and put her to bed and a little r and r

10pm. Bed.

Lots of this depends on ZESA, which recently has cut out at the WORST times and obviously causes things to take longer like cooking. Now you may wonder where do domestic duties come in, well along with my house came domestic help a fantastic person named Jonathan who has become my saving grace, I would never have clean dishes, laundry and my house would look like a frat house if it wasn’t for him. The yard would look like a jungle. My other saving grace is coffee, I know this sounds bad but it makes me happy and it keeps me going plus I don’t think it’s as potent as Canadian coffee because I can drink 5 cups a day and have no issues sleeping, although to be fair sleeping has never been an issue for me and I guess with working like I do, sleeping comes easy. This coming weekend is a long weekend due to Independence Day. 31 years ago on April 18^th Zimbabwe became a “free nation”. A little piece of trivia for you, Robert Mugabe was not the first Shona president of Zimbabwe a man named Canaan Banana was, that’s right President Banana was the leader of Zimbabwe at Independence, there isn’t much out there about him and he’s not talked about and I’m sure if you asked a ZANU PF person they would say it’s always been Mugabe.

Late yesterday good news came my way. A decision was made that the original plan with sections moved around in order to fit was the way to go. The building area and materials used would remain the same. It took a slightly different shape but it will work!!!! So now construction digging has started full swing with no turning back and I can finally do the drawings full out without any changes. A huge weight has been lifted and we’re back on track.

Lots has been going on the last week. I went to Harare for my month visit. I help out at an AIDS clinic and get my monthly supplies. We are now starting to work on the interior of the building, which for various reasons should have happened sooner and later. So I’m in the midst of looking for furniture, computer hardware and software, the works! So I started at this ikea kind of place called OK Mart and then found an agent to do the work for me, I just give him the list and he sorts it all out! Plus this agent could also handle the zambulance situation, which I will explain later. Anyways I also went to get the test results from the brick testing we had done and it was not good. The tests should have showed at out of necessary 8MPa (mega Pascal, how compression is measured) we by law require an 8, we acquired a 1.65. Now I know what you are thinking, we didn’t just fail we tanked, our bricks are 20% of the mandatory requirement where did we go wrong? Well this is what I asked myself for the next 3 hours. I went over the math of the mix, the mixing process, the labour, the machine and on and on. When I went to drop off the bricks to be tested, I like an organized, efficient individual called ahead and got a quote and name and all the requirements necessary for the bricks to be tested. So when I showed up, the man who does the testing explained to me that the price I was quoted was to small and $60 per 10 bricks was not enough, they now wanted $210 per 10. So after negotiations and talking to the manager of the department I got my original price. So if the tests showed a failure I’d have to come back and do it again and then they can charge whatever they want and my hands are tied. I’ve talked to a few people, in the industry and people who’ve done projects here and this may be an actual probability. It never occurred to me this would be the case, I looked at myself and what we were doing, not anything someone else would do. I am still looking at those things and we are changing some of the variables and trying some things to see if that improves things, we also broke one ourselves to see what happened and it didn’t look horrible and it broke really nicely and the 3 of us there all professionals were impressed. So we’ll see what we can do, we are also looking at finding another place to use for testing like the Construction Association of Zimbabwe, which works for the industry. Another thought we had is to mix a hydraulic brick press with the Bamba brick press. The size, design and make of the brick press with the power of creation of the hydraulics. This will speed up the manual process which is taking too long and might be a reason the bricks aren’t tough enough (if in fact they are).

Now on to the zambulance as I promised. A zambulance is a bed attached to a bicycle and used as an ambulance. The zambulance has a cover over the bed to provide weather protection, privacy and ventilation. But there are some design flaws, improvements and new ideas to come to this amazing invention and I’m working on it. What gets me everytime is putting one of these is a rural area means a little old lady in desperate need of medical can be put into a zambulance and taking to a clinic or a hospital or where ever she needs to go and won’t die or become chronic or permanently ill because of something that could easily be fixed. Or a pregnant woman having complications can be taken to hospital and not risk herself or the baby. This is why I’m here to help a community with little to no resources improve by giving them the resources to do it.

And that in a nutshell has been my last week, which is still going and more gets added to the list but that’s why I said we’d do this in 6 months and not 4 because nothing runs smoothing, things will go wrong and do go wrong but it’s all in the learning and it would be boring if it was all smooth sailing.

The good news is TODAY, APRIL 7TH, 2011 they started excavation for foundations! We have lift off.

I go grocery shopping once a month. One big shop then I don’t have to worry about making sure I get into town or running out. I seem to have a good idea of what is needed in a month. So it is now at the end of the month and there are veggies left in the fridge that are on their last leg and need to be used so I have come up with an idea called “Left over chili”. Left over chili is the usual ground beef, tomato sauce, beans’n sauce and all the left over veg in my fridge. It turned out really well although there was an unimaginable amount of green string beans and carrots, but now I have loads of iron and good night vision!

ZESA for the first time this evening went out for a usual 4.5 hour stint. 5pm it went out, 9:30 it came back. Luckily for the first hour I was in a meeting, then I was able to work until my computer battery died, then I made dinner on the propane tank.

My “To Do” list is now numbered and the numbers are distributed evenly among the days. Lots of the numbers span over a few days and some I think will never get ticked off the list, it also doesn’t help that the list keeps getting longer!!!

We are now working on the game plan of what’s going on inside the building. The various ideas are becoming more concrete and various competitions to decorate the building. This should have been done before the building was designed but here in Zimbabwe things happen differently. I’m surprised I’m the one putting together this game plan, but it’s been good experience and interesting.

Another new thing we thought to try is mixing our Bamba brick system with a Hydraform. The design and strength of the Bamba system with the ease of construction of the Hydraform to create an iron brick that you can turn out 1000 a day versus the 100 a day with just the Bamba. The Hydraform usually doesn’t include cement in the mix and doesn’t provide the interlocking system of Bamba. So we’ll see what turns out. One small step for Meredith, one GIANT step for the construction brick making community.

I’m listening to classical music while trying to fix the library plans AGAIN! Finally after 2 weeks of daily conversations with different Council members in the construction department and mini visits to site where they walk around but don’t do anything, yesterday they FINALLY put in the pegs. However, the pegs they put in were not at the original location. The previous pegs, were not permanent and have since disappeared. The new pegs are permanent but not the location of the last pegs, so my site changed in all the wrong places. So I had to re-draw the site plan AND try to design a building that fits into the space. So I’m very lucky that ZESA (power) has decided to stick around so I can do all these drawings. Then having to talk to various people to get their input and opinions and doing different options to see what different things look like, it’s almost like starting from scratch. I thought we had this all sorted but I guess that’s not the case. I was going to ask for a variance to encroach on the boundary line by 500mm but it would take until June when all of Council has their quarterly meeting to get approved and we can’t wait that long. So we make the changes and send Council the amendments package, which they won’t read but approve, which is fine with me. The head of the construction department yesterday told me after he finished the pegging that he didn’t want to see me until the job was done. I laughed and said I would see him when I needed his help.

We continue to come up with new ideas for the resource center and all the things it could be used for and what we want in it. A big thing is that there is nothing to do here in Nyanga, if you want to go out, meet friends, whatever there is no movie theatre, no coffee shop, no take out, if you want to eat out, you go to one of the hotel or resorts in the area. We are thinking of ways to keep people entertained, out of trouble and something to keep them stimulated and something unique. The existing library is to be used for conferences, meetings, etc. but what about when there isn’t any. We wondered about making it a art gallery. There is currently a wee bathroom with a storage room around it that we are thinking of converting into a kitchen or even better a small canteen or coffee stall. From there sandwich’s, coffee, snacks whatever could be sold, bring your computer, look at some art and it’s a cooler version of Starbucks! It also means that people in the library don’t have to leave to eat. There isn’t anything like this in the area. If I was a student from 100km down the dirt road and I came on a Saturday for the library and computer room, I’d like to eat and have coffee. Also we thought of maybe having a big backdrop or screen to show movies, both educational and entertainment and then during meetings or conferences you could plug your computer in and run a slide show. This would give Nyanga a social life or weekend life outside of drinking and just hanging out in the bush doing nothing. This is one of the exciting parts of my job that I enjoy. We also thought of having the students paint inside the children’s area and part of the outside of building like a mural to give it a unique look to it, plus if students from all 70 schools were involved it would add to the community of the building

I’ve met with Council and had them sort out the pegs showing the boundary lines of our property. I had done the elevation points of the property and knew the dimensions of the property but wasn’t sure of where the points were. Theoretically it all works out, practically is the questions and the answer “Madame I’m sure you’re fine, we’re not concerned” doesn’t work for me nor is it legal! But you never just talk to one person and it never just one meeting, it was 4!!!! One thing about the Shona they love meetings and love to met about meeting, which I am not! I want to meet and sort it out and move on, get things moving, I now understand the phrase TIA “This is Africa” and BMT “Black Man Time” and why it takes so long for anything to happen. That was Monday, Tuesday someone was to show up at 8:30 and do the marking, 20 to 9 he still hadn’t come, so I contacted him and he told me, he’d be there at 9. 9:10 he still hadn’t shown, so again I contacted him and said when he was ready to buzz me, as I had other things to do. By 11 I had still heard nothing, so I thought, if I hadn’t heard anything by noon I’d go to the office. At noon my other half for the project, the administrative one called saying he was on site and with the head of the construction department for Council. I got to site and found out the head of the department was on his day off, and just wanted to see how the project was coming. I told him what the issue was and what I wanted and he said the man who was to come and do the marking was in the rural areas for the day. He said to call him back and find out if he could send someone else. The head of the department said he was going to start hiding from me because I always wanted/needed something and caused him so much work. I see this as a good thing. He also said he wanted to do some construction himself while I was still around so I could help him! We called back our original contact and he suggested calling one of his workers. We called him and he came to site, looked around at what we wanted and said he needed more time to do the work than he had and would come back the next morning at 8:30 to do the work. Wednesday morning 8:30 I show up to site and surprise, surprise no on showed up. At 9 I contacted him and asked what was happening and he said he would be right there, 45 minutes later he shows up with the original man who was suppose to come and they say they can’t do the work today because they are meant to be doing inspections around the area, so can they come back tomorrow morning. I asked for a time and he said he would call me first thing in the morning, I told him if I hadn’t heard from him by 9, I’d call him. My administrative contact called and asked how it went and I told him, he was fuming, I said maybe we should just jump the line and talk to the C.E.O forget this business, we are on DAY 3, tomorrow DAY 4!!!

We haven’t had water in 4 DAYS!! This is not good, nor is it normal! But we have had ZESA or power, for the 4 days straight. However, 4pm it came back on!!! So the first thing I did was flush the toilet and take a shower! Due to the good rains, Wangie damn is full, this is what powers the east side of the country. Harare still has issues like always, so it’s nice for once to be in the bush (munda). I have a geezer, so there is piping hot water, scalding hot water, but once the tank empties that’s it, so I have to use it sparingly (showering has been a priority because it is CRAZY hot).However, my bathroom smells like an outhouse, which isn’t pleasant but like they say TIA.

I have a dog, her name is Molly and she’s 3 months old. I got her from a friend who has a farm and his female had a litter. I knew that being up in Nyanga on my own this time, I would want some company. Molly has been great company, she’s keeping me sane! She knows her name, comes when she is called and follows me EVERYWHERE! Like all puppies she chews EVERYTHING and especially enjoys my shoes and her bedding. She is currently being house broken (a challenge) and also keeping her in HER bed at night. My house has a mud room, which has her bed, and her food. So she knows that’s her place. However, spending the night there by herself is not ok. She just destroys the room, I’ve had to move things around, get things out of puppy reach and last night she cried for about an hour and then silence, she spent the whole night in there alone!!! We are making progress.

The weather is hot, well hotter than the weather I left it is also still raining mostly just drizzling in fits and spurts but there has been some heavy rain as well. It’s nice to be back in the mountains, people remember me and when I go out, people stop me and ask what I’ve been doing, why haven’t I been around and it’s nice to see me. They also say that they can see the bricks being made, and that they can see the project has started, so we are getting positive feedback.

Thank God for showers at the Amsterdam Airport!!! Well maybe I’m getting a head of myself, lets start at the beginning. Last week started out like any other week, I got up Tuesday morning to a phone message from Zimbabwe telling me I had to come back ASAP or they would need to find someone else. I had planned to go back but was trying to make a little more money to go back with but I was needed. So after I listened to the message, looked at mum and said “I need to leave now!” and I booked a ticket for the following Monday. So the week became a rush of work, buy a ticket, getting insurance, packing my bags, picking up last minute things, trying to say goodbye to as many people as I could and caught the Monday morning ferry to Vancouver for a Monday night flight! And that’s how I got to appreciate the showers at the Amsterdam Airport! The flight from Vancouver to Amsterdam in 9 hours with an 9 hour difference and a 6 hour waiting period, the flight to Nairobi is 8.5 hours with an additional 2 hour difference and a 2.5 hour waiting period and the flight to Harare is 3 hours minus 1 of the hours from Nairobi for a total flight time of 20.5 hours flying time, 10 hour time difference and a waiting time of 8.5 hours, for a grand total of 39 hours of travel! The bonus I think is that both long flights are over night flights and God has blessed me with the gift of sleeping anywhere, anytime. So not only am I clean BUT I’m not exhausted!!! It’s the little things isn’t it? And to make things sweeter I was in a row of 3 with only 2 people so I was able to use the middle seat for my legs to sleep, which is a total bonus!!! Now if only Nairobi had showers. These showers aren’t the garbage kind at roadside motels, these are nice rain showers with fantastic hot water and amazing pressure, they put most households to shame. Did I tell you about the showers? At 15 Euros everybody wins!

I was fortunate enough to get my own row on the Amsterdam to Nairobi flight, which is 8.5 hours, so I was able to sleep most of the way. From there I went I flew to Harare!

I arrived in Harare and went through passport control. What I had was to get in was an acceptance letter from immigration but not the original, a copy because I couldn’t be in the country while the visa was being processed and the acceptance letter couldn’t come to me. Passport control had to have a conference while I was waiting to decide if that was enough to let me in. My contact wasn’t picking me up and so the original letter was in Nyanga. The decided to let me through with a 7 day pass, a form to let me pick up my permit, however I wasn’t allowed to travel outside Harare. From there I went to pick up my luggage, which I am pleased to say was NOT OVER WEIGHT! Then I had to clear customs, I had nothing to declare and went through that door, I was pulled over by an officer to have my suitcases go through security as you do when you are traveling. They decided they wanted to go through both suitcases, both were emptied and everything was questions, each cd was checked, all my textbooks, my safe was opened, all pockets were checked. I brought 2 bags of used glasses to donate to an optometrist who checks peoples eyes and gives them glasses for free. The officer wanted a detailed explanation of why I had them, how much they were worth, what was going to happen them. He then wanted me to clear them with customs. So I packed up my stuff and went to the other side, where a new officer asked me to empty my suitcases AGAIN! However this time he just looked at the glasses and asked me the same questions, he looked at the glasses and said, “I don’t want these, you can take them, pack up and go”. So it all ended ok except it took me 2 hours to get to the terminal. From the airport I went to immigration to sort out my work permit. The office found my file relatively quickly but it took them an hour to re-read it and write out my permit. Luckily I was able to get it just before the office closed.

The next 2 days were spent running errands and getting reacquainted with the city and the country, readjusting to life in Zimbabwe.

I then left Saturday morning for Nyanga. I had forgotten how beautiful the drive is or how bad the roads are but I made it with a dog in tow, Molly, my new roommate to keep me company. She’s 3 months old, she half Alsatian, half mixed breed. So we arrived at our new home which is across the street from the site and I can see construction from the yard.

The house is HUGE! It’s a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, with a covered garage, mud room, living room, dining room and kitchen. The yard is also massive, I could play a real soccer game on the side lawn! They have a fantastic porch with a brai (bbq), table and deck chairs! I feel like I should run it as a guest house.

So now to work, I met with the contractor on site and we went around and talked about issues and what’s been going on, they’ve started digging, and making bricks!! It’s starting to take shape.