Greetings friends…..I am long overdue writing this note but
promise to be more diligent as things get more interesting.
We are making good progress on the facility here in
Eldoret. The 100,000 sf. Facility is
comprised of five main areas, namely Cardiac care, Chronic care examination
space, Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Research Education, and
Administration. The building will be
quite beautiful as well as efficient upon completion with lots of natural light
and ventilation, local stone, beautiful colors and murals, 2 million liters of
rain water storage, 400 kw of solar power, solar hot water and welcoming
landscaping of the grounds, to name a few attributes.
Usually I get to work by foot along a moderately busy road
which alternates between muddy and dusty.
The really nice thing is that when the Jacaranda trees are in bloom, the
ground is covered part of the way with these beautiful light purple
flowers….particularly after a good rain…….it makes the walk quite enjoyable.
The building was designed by Geoffrey Njihia and his team at
Atticspace Architects in Nairobi. He is
an accomplished young architect with a good eye and he is quite focused on
environmental issues. It has been a
pleasure to work with him as well as his team of mechanical, electrical,
structural, civil and environmental engineers.
Their English is far, far better than my broken Swahili, that is for sure,
but they humor me along. Despite the
common language of English there are times when we have to work to understand
one another clearly…..I try to keep my Ogilville twang in check.
We had an exciting ground breaking with all of the requisite
hoopla in December. The Minister of
Health was here as well as many, many dignitaries….and yes, there were lots of
rather lengthy speeches. Our Hoosier
institutions can be heartily complimented for their collaborative efforts here
over the past 20 years. There is a
wonderful sense of partnership with our Kenyan colleagues that makes this
effort all the more valuable.
Our contractor, Vishva, is Kenyan Indian, and they are very
accomplished. I had the pleasure of
working with them a bit on the Mother and Baby Hospital and they do excellent
work, albeit in a manner quite different than we are used to back home. The owners, Ramji and Anil Vekaria, are good
natured and enjoyable to work with.
Peter Museyemi is the site foreman and a friendly focused man. One could not ask for a better team. My principal counterpart at Moi Teaching and
Referral Hospital is Odhiambo Atogo, the hospital’s Chief Engineer. Excellent colleague who is working hard to
improve my Swahili as well……he noted that I needed help once while we were
ordering lunch. In lieu of ordering up
bananas, I ordered up some “butt”……I have tried not to repeat that error too
often!!!
As I noted above, things are done quite differently. The excavation tools of choice here are the
pickax and shovel………and the means of transport of choice is the
wheelbarrow. What I can tell you is that
it is amazing how much digging 40 men can get done in one day. Foundation stones are trimmed by hand here in
the field, so if you know someone you want to punish send him/her my way and I
will put him on the stone trimming crew…….
Although there is a quarry in the area, it is still cheaper to
break stones by hand and line them up rather than simply putting in gravel and
spreading it prior to pouring concrete. Then the spaces between the stones are
filled with small stone chips.
Labor,labor, labor and none of it easy.
They work here 6 days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a 1 hour
lunch break…..compensaton for a laborer starts at about $3.00/day, which is the
government rate…..yup, per day and the men are glad to get the work. Lunch is beans, maize and water.
When we mix concrete there it is an event to behold. The wheelbarrows are lined up one after
another while the mixing crew keeps the mixer hummin !! There is no Ready Mix concrete here so in
lieu of that there are very large piles of sand, gravel and cement that get
whittled away all day long by way of lots of shovels and many, many men. Peter does a great job of orchestrating the
crew and the results are quite impressive.
The Art4AIDS benefit in Columbus had direct benefits here as
well. In addition to sending near $3750
here for Imani Workshops,, money was earmarked to paint the perimeter walls
surrounding the site with murals focused on family, peace, the environment and
other Kenyan issues. I have also
enclosed a couple of photos of the artists doing this work. It is great fun to see it develop each day.
Up until now it has been relatively dry. The rains are beginning and we shall see what
kind of progress we make in the mud.
Liam and I were out walkin’ the dog yesterday and got our first good
soaking of the season…..it was just fine by me.
My best wishes to all with the arrival at home of my favorite
season….enjoy those daffodils!!!
Michael
Michael, this project is amazing! Thank you so much for letting us know what is going on! I can't believe how labor intensive the work is, but I saw a lot of that in Japan, too. Maybe it's valuing people over profits? Just giving people work and a purpose is so important and something that is dying out over here where the companies do not care for their workers much.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!