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.