Just saying “hi.”

Here are a few photographs, randomly assembled, from the last few days.

We’ve been tinkering with the website some. The best way, I think to view this post is to click on the first photo, which will get big and then just use the arrows underneath the picture to advance to the next one, and so on.

You never know where a Yankee fan will pop up.

This in the window of a welding shop. Not sure what kind of alternative is on offer.

This was just down the hall from Auntie Tabby's counseling center. Lots of noise coming through. They were cooking.

Me. Stuck in the mud on the way to get Britt from the airport.

The crew that gathered and assisted in the hour long extrication.

Tony and I were having lunch upstairs here. You can see the old faithful pick up parked in the middle of the photo near Kinpash, the place where we are buying the guttering for the buildings. The "jam" is beginning to form.

Davinder Singh's place, where we are having our bunk beds made.

Some kids playing near Davinder's place.

Part of a new steel manufacturing plant being built on the Mombasa Road.

It's been raining here.

If you look closely you can see a huge bag of potatoes and a guy bent double underneath it.

Our lovely, to my eyes, completed tank stand and washing basins.

A rainstorm a few kilometers away dumping lots of water on Kitengela.

Me. Stuck in the mud on the way home from work. Another long haul out.

This is a human powered cart full of plastic containers, etc. You can see the second in command running alongside.

Sigi's Bar and Restaurant. Never been there. But soon, I hope.

Guys filling jerry cans with water for construction on the generator house.

David and I used to be fast friends. Now he cries nearly every time he sees me,

and can't wait to head on down the road.

One of the H-Tess guys cutting a fine 45 degree angle with just a stabilizer block for help.

A lot of hardcore laid out in front of a place in Athi River. Just like we've done here so many times.

A group of folks looking through a rubble pile for I'm not sure what.

Brit’s here. She says howdy. Monte’s coming.

“…the man journeying to his own country must not mistake the inn for his home.”  Augustine.

Safe journey,

David

Posted on April 22nd, 2010 by david
Filed under: Recent News | 7 Comments »

Hello,

.

All the holes we dig here take a lot of work to fill back in. Usually with lots of rocks and sledgehammering and so on. But this one twisted us around in new ways. A different kind of baptism.

This excavation for a quarried stone stand for two 1500 liter water tanks near the kitchen seemed harmless enough. 12' by 9' by 5' and down to the murram. But it has been raining here now almost everyday and water has been trickling in from several small underground rivulets

which find their way through tiny self-made gaps in the joint mortar.

They're like post-op bleeders, small but important. Eric, our water guy, thinks that in the rainy season the underground water flow, following the contour of the land, comes under the patio of the kitchen/administration building and carries on from there. We may, if the dowsing is conclusive, dig a shallow well in this aquatic path to collect the water for our use and retard its potentially harmful downward travels.

In any case we couldn't back fill this site in the normal crushed hardcore and murram fashion, since the water would too easily find its way through. So we needed to fill it entirely with very compacted murram and persuade it to an easier path. But because of the heavy rains and in spite of repeated pumping efforts, we couldn't get it dry enough.

What we needed was a temporary truce. Stop the flow long enough to get the mud out and back fill with 8"layers of murram, compacted with our new vibrating compactor.

If I weren't such a knucklehead, I would have bought one two years ago, instead of trying to find one for hire when we needed it.

Other work continued on as usual. Joyce still came to cook lunch for us.

The houses were getting their security windows.

And the T&G siding and flooring were sliding into place.

.

The combination water tank stand and clothes washing sink was growing,

and getting smooth, luscious curves.

The facia boards came early so we could get them up and put in the guttering asap.

We had a one night break in the rain, so today was our chance. We bailed the last bits of water from the hole we had dug in the low point and made concrete patches backed by plastic barriers over the leakers.

And then made bigger and bigger efforts to staunch the flow...just temporarily...so we could get the murram in and compacted,

until we had lined the entire length with overlapping heavy polythene sheeting. As I learned from my friend, Chris, you can lead a horse to water, but the water is still going to do whatever it pleases. We worked for a couple of hours trying to tip the balance and wound just getting tipsy.The murram we were putting down was too wet and the compactor was bogging down after a single pass, and we had to stop and hack and scrape the bottom clean. We probably needed about 500 passes to get the job done.

We brushed used motor oil on the compacting blade after every cleaning which helped a little.

And we hacked and scraped some more.

.

Then we got the bright idea to put some of the polythene sheeting on top of the murram and run the compactor over it. That was a big improvement, though a little tricky. And eventually we were able to raise the level of the compacted murram enough to gain some breathing room. While we were compacting the guys were filling the Bedford with the next load of murram, and we finally got down to some dried stuff and could skip the sheeting.

.

It started to rain about 4pm. Our guttering is up on the kitchen building, but an order of joints and connectors that was fabricated incorrectly has prevented us from being able to tie it in with the underground piping system to the storage tanks. That should be remedied next week.

I got wet a little in it,

and collected, in about ten steps, some of the fly paper soil on my shoes.

The collection barrel under the gutter's flow floated shoes better suited for today's work.

But we did manage to find some drier murram in our big pile, and get almost all the hole filled and compacted, and safe for now from subterranean subterfuge. It was a long, tiring, muddy, and, I guess you could say, a Holy Thursday.

.

What I wanted when I got home was a Demerol drip and a squad of skilled, empathic Swedish masseuses. What I got was a shower with hot water, dinner, a smile from Emily Moses, and a long talk with my nearest distant friend. On that night when bread and trust were broken, when friends slept and great heart faltered, I was safe and fed and loved and sure of tomorrow,  that we could call it Good.

.

Some payment has been made. And soon, Easter.

.

So long for now.

.

David

Posted on April 2nd, 2010 by david
Filed under: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »