Delivery – November 1st
SUNSET AT DOMPOASE
The 15kW generator was supposed to arrive by 3pm, leaving lots of daylight left for the unloading. Instead, the truck finally showed up at 5:45pm, just as the sun was setting. Like a bull in a china shop, the truck driver didn’t listen to advice to take it slow and he proceeded to run his truck off the soft shoulder of our site destroying our new cement stairs. Notice that they are still intact in this shot.
FUN WITH CRANE – NO PIPES
After the truck was freed from the demolished stairs, it was time to dent up the roof with the crane. Bob had suggested to the driver (and his boss) the day before that they should make sure to bring some pipes with them that would allow for the rolling of the generator on the slab but again, they thought they knew better. This resulted in the driver trying to use the crane to move the generator under the roof and thereby damaging the roof. Bob had also sent them pictures of the site, the roof, the access – apparently for naught.
BRING OUT THE FUFU STICK
Since pipes weren’t an option, they brought out a stick to leverage the 1000 pound generator along.
NO MORE DRAMA
The next day a gentleman named Pat arrived to do the pre-delivery inspection. We discovered that the generator had not been fired up upon delivery in Accra, as it had no motor oil nor any sign of fuel in it. Bob and Pat went over to Pat’s office to pick up some motor oil and met Bubbles the cat. Bubbles is now an indoor cat after locals have made two serious attempts at eating him.
REPAIRING THE DAMAGE
Bob and Eric hired a mason, bought 40 concrete blocks, 8 bags of cement, 32 headpans of sand and 20 twenty liter jugs of water and moved all of them to the site to repair the damage to the stairs and to extend the concrete pad to accommodate the generator. It turned out that the specification sheet that the generator firm provided had the physical dimensions wrong – by a lot! Bob had designed the size of the generator room based on it being 1.3 meters long but it was in fact 2.2 meters long. This meant that the generator would not fit in the room so the concrete pad had to be extended in order to fit it in perpendicularly. The generator company agreed to pay the costs for the repairs and retrofit. The mason did a fine job on the stairs.
MOVING MATERIALS TO THE SITE
Eric hired a truck to move the sand, water, concrete and blocks to the site. Two laborers came along to help unload. You can see the small dent in the roof caused by the crane.
GENERATOR PAD
The pad extension started with the construction of a foundation using concrete blocks and packed earth. The mason then used a piece of plywood that was laying around to make the concrete form for the poured pad. He “cut” the plywood with a pickax. The concrete was mixed by hand onsite.
A RIGHT FINE PAD
Eric loves to act as Quality Control Manager. Here he makes sure the mason and his helper are doing it right.
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[Latest] * [Troutsfarm] * [Installing the Generator] * [November Garden] * [Traffic Accident] * [Wildlife at Dompoase] * [It’s All About the Sludge] * [Filling the Digesters]
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