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.