The which we were hardly able to do, when the truck with the forty foot container inched its way through our red oxide gate. It was like a relative…one you like…showing up just before grace at Thanksgiving dinner, whom you believed still to be in Suriname. The long, tortuous bureaucratic swamp and the Oakland, CA to Shanghai to Port Kelang Malaysia to Durban South Africa to Mombasa Kenya to Lukenya Daystar Red Rhino Orphange Project site journey are behind now. It is home, just in time for turkey.

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And like a good relative, it brought presents. Lots of them. Like…

- tractor with frontloader

- John Deere Gator

- trailer with 350 gal water tank

- 2 welders

- huge generator –  12 KVA

- 5 hp Honda generator

- 3 water pumps

- laser site level

- chop saw

- Saws All

- 7″ grinder

- compressor

- battery charger

- floor jack

- weed eaters

- Skill saw

- compound miter saw

- drill press

- drill bits

- 4 wheel barows

- masonary tools

- wood working hand tools

- wrenches and sockets

- shovels, mattocks, pry bars, sledge hammers

- 3 aluminium ladders

- screw drivers, pliers, snips, hack saws, hand saws

- rolling Craftsman tool box

- smaller tool boxes

- concrete tools, and 20′ leveling bar

- heavy duty metal shelving

- a ton of rebar

- plywood, lumber

- uncountable hand tools

- nuts and bolts – innumerable

- solar panels

- two way radios

- solid core doors

- windows

- heavy duty steel I beams

- 1000′ of pvc pipe

- an incubator for Springs of Hope

- a jaundice light

- a baby scale

- 5 bikes

- 2 basketball hoops

- soccer balls and nets

- toys and stuffed animals

- books

- many many clothes

- 40 sets of sheets and blankets

And other stuff I’m forgetting. But will not forget to use or be thankful for.

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Here’s the pictorial version.

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Getting the forty foot tractor-trailer through our gate was a breeze, at least an inch and a half clearance on both sides.

He had driven all night from Mombasa and arrived in the morning with only two of his tires flat.

He had time to take some tea before the crane came. We had arranged for one last night, and then at 7am when he was supposed be on his way I called and the owner told me the crane was broken.

After some scrambling and horse trading we found this beauty. Fifty tons of why not.

This is the machine you want on your side when you get in a fight.

With Julius at the controls

and Pappa hook and Baby hook for good measure.

You just sit back and let mechanical nature take its course.

Just like this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And before you're ready for it to be, it's over.

And the container is heavy again.

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If the Egyptians had had a few of these there would be a pyramid on every corner.

We hacksawed through the seal, cracked it open

and posed like the founding fathers of something,

then got to work unpacking.

3/4" plywood.

Flat, strong sheets of goodness.

 

 

Joel's wood burning stove.

 

Mary's incubator.

A serious welding machine.

A 12 KVA generator. We'll need a fork lift to move this power plant.

 

 

Murafu got a new hat.

And everybody got new gloves.

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Many, many people worked very hard to get our jumbo present filled and here. So thank you for all your, in some cases, overwhelming generosity. And accept, when you can, our invitation to come, and see your stuff in use, here, in its new home. There are two people without whom the six stone and concrete pedestals would be forever vacant. Gary Guthrie worked tenaciously and tirelessly to gather so many of the things that came. Thank you, Gary. I know it wasn’t always easy, but we’re all here deeply grateful. And Pat Shepherd. Pat you endured more headaches and put in more, often very frustrating hours, to “make it happen” than anyone will ever know. But now it’s here, and the kids, will know when they sleep on the sheets and read the books and wear the clothes and live in the place kept in good trim with our new tools. Thank you both.

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I’m still on a borrowed laptop, and it’s worth remembering we’re all still on borrowed time. Let’s live it up.

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In praise of the Loaner of our time,

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David

Posted on July 4th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Recent News | 12 Comments »

Come on in. It’s been a long week, and now, it’s finished up. The tools are cleaned and stowed in the container and the guys have cleaned up, changed into their good clothes and headed off for all that Saturday night offers.

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Here’s some of the fading footprint of the last week or so.

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These fruits are as big and bigger than pineapples. Not sure what they are named.

They hang in the tree above Pascal's al fresco tailor shop. When my pants get torn, or need taking in, I take them to the umbrella under the big green hanging fruit.

When electricity is expensive and unreliable,

some have returned to irons heated by charcoal in their bellies.

The unlikely symmetry of tall people.

We've been ordering furniture lately for the houses and the big building. These are the cushions for the set that Monte found on a bulletin board

and made a deal with the lady who owned it.

Two sofas and two arm chairs.

Some loads just look heavy. This one, unfortunately, is the real thing.

The rains have brought tall grass which we are cutting to use as mulch for our plants and trees.

The guys call it golfing.

The sex wars are ON. The female, Puppy, here is flanked by two of the bloodied combatants. Chubby Sean isn't pictured because he can't walk owing to the deep wounds in his left front leg. Puppy's tumescence is starting gun and finishing line.

And soon enough it looks like this.

But for now it looks, and feels, like this.

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This is the back wall and the smashed hardcore sub-floor of the workshop, which will have as its two side walls the current 20' container and the soon-to-arrive 40' container. The front will remain open and we will fabricate steel trusses for the shed mbati roof we will put on.

We have finally been able to connect the guttering on all the buildings to the underground pipes which completes the rain water collection system we began what seems like a long time ago with the excavation for the 24,000 liter storage tanks.

some "elbows,"

some "T's," some glue,

a plumb bob,

a plumb bob's view of it all.

And a downspout connected

Then another

 

Sometimes we have to heat one end of the pipe to make it receptive to our plans.

Our heating element.

The black dog in his office and his new view of two downspouts. The pipes are away from the houses for two reasons. The foundation of the buildings is crushed hardcore and compacted murram. It doesn't lend itself to pipe burying. The other reason is white ants...termites to you. We can't create a pathway for them into the buildings. We'll create some kind of kid-proof structure around the bottom half of the downspouts and fill it with plants, etc. Up higher on the pipes we will fit something like the aluminum termite barriers which are on each foundtion piling.

The last remaining connection is to the Generator House, which still needs guttering.

This may not look like much, but it is beautiful to us. It's the filtering mechanism

for this...our new Hydo-loo. Our self contained toilets. A late inning save from the pit latrines (out houses) that were our only other option.

There not cheap, but when is real beauty not dear.

The tanks are filled with water and the liquid and solid waste takes about a 140 day swim, getting aneorobically scrubbed until it emerges out of the buried effluence pipe as good old ecoli free H20.

We'll have two attached to each house and a few others scattered around for good measure.

It might be hard to imagine how these molded plastic kidneys fill me to the brim with deep satisfaction and joy...but they do.

Enough to make you climb up to get a clear look at the horizon and the all the other wonders gathering there.

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The Band is right now testifying, “Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.” I think they mean all of us. I wonder what that will look like? For tonight, I’m settling for a seat near a big TV in Nairobi and the Champions’ League final with B, Martin, Mr and Mrs Masa, and flock of hollering Inter Milan and Bayern Munich fans.

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Mael is getting ready to crawl. So it’s ok.

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David

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Posted on May 22nd, 2010 by david
Filed under: Recent News | 10 Comments »