More Building

A lot of photos of the building work this time I'm afraid, but this is what I've mainly been up to. It has been a very interesting time and great practice for learning the language although all my vocab is mainly construction terms.

There is also the usual amount of fun stories that have happened such as our hunt for a new beach on saturday. After driving for about an hour supposedly on a road we came to a village that seemed to be the end of the road but we were determined not to get beaten and weaved our way around trees, rocks and houses all with about 300 children following and watching us. Soon we had to abort mission as it was impossible to get through and we obtained a burst tyre for not quite missing one of the rocks.

I wanted to get a photo of the 300 plus kids watching (and probably laughing at) us but as soon as we got the camera they fled like I had pointed a gun at them.

This is the best picture we could get showing some of the kids.

This is a photo taken out of the car window of some of the roadworks that they are doing here. Here they are installing drainage under the main Airport Road.

I would like to draw your attention to some aspects of this photo as an engineer. Firstly note the 'barrier system' between the live traffic and the sheer drop. Also note that this photo was taken about 1 week before the rains which destroy most roads and I think will cause a bit of mayhem to the banks of this excavation. These guys where all wearing safety helmets which is quite impresive but they were all bare foot as well!

So the building work. This has been going well and it is very interesting to see how things are different. For example to make glue they pour petrol on polystyrene and, as this picture shows the hazards are quite different.

This guy is continued with his hammer and chisel for a another week or so.

These are the pillars for the workshop which should give you a bit of an idea of the height. It is useful that Health and Safety is not like that in England and that everyone here knows how to climb a coconut tree.

All five pillars up and straight!

Hans and I 'supervising' the work

Monday morning briefing

Paula getting the hang of laying blocks

This last photo shows another of my pastimes here - catching rats. I have lots more photos but I think some of you would not like to see them.

Thanks Jo for the T-shirt!

New nephew, new house and more building

I thought that there would not be much to say in this blog entry but when I think about it a fair bit has been going on. There has been many stories, such as another running in with a cop, this time I was at fault driving the wrong side of an island however after 20 mins I managed to convince him that he was a nice guy and we were friends and he let me go.

Some very exciting news is that we have another nephew. His name is Eli and was born on the 27th of Feburary and I can't wait to see him.

Jon and Eli

I mentioned last month that we were about to move house. This we did.

This is our new house, familier to some of you as it is our team mates house, Alex and Julie's, as is the pink car we have inheritted which is a blessing in light of our car troubles back in England.

Inside: this is our lounge. Notice the IKEA chairs which are the best chairs on the island - brought from England of course.

And yes, a dog. This also came with the house and has probably been the biggest sacrifice I have made considering my love (or lack of it) for animals - especially dogs. This one is called Pumba and is a little crazy although we are getting used to it. Our previous mlinzi (guard) said that it is better to have a dog than a mlinzi because they won't just sleep all night.

Most of my time this past month has been at the site where progress is happening with the building work.

This picture was taken 10 days ago...

...and this was taken this afternoon.

This is the workshop area which we are building first in the hope that we can get a roof on before the rainy season.

This poor guy has been digging this whole for about 3 days with a hammer and chisel as the ground is mainly rock. It is for the pillars supporting the workshop roof. No steel toe caps-just bare feet!

This is also quite cool, a guy making pretty good quality scaffold boards from a
coconut tree using a chainsaw.

Paula also got her hands dirty with some blockwork which I think she enjoyed.

Today we managed to get some cheddar cheese after about 3 months of searching for some-I originally didn't want to pay £9/kg from the guy down an alley who disappears off somewhere and comes back with a warm soft yellow lump, but after giving up finding some elsewhere I went back only to find the price had gone up and they would only sell me a 2.5kg lump and they didn't actually have any. I eventually got 2.5kg of fairly naff mild cheddar from a shop with a fridge for £22 but am very happy to have it. I don't want to think of the amazing cheese I could get in England for that!

Paula getting to grips with windsurfing

This is our local beach which we can walk to and is very refreshing

after a hot days work on the site.