Our First Road Block

               

"Failing to plan is planning to fail"

-One of the quotes from the school grounds

          Since today was the first day of the New Year, most of the Kisumu population seemed to be either at home resting or at church this morning. Because of this, our ride to the community did not have as much traffic as usual. When we arrived at the secondary school, the work seemed to be progressing well and things generally appeared to be going according to plan. The tree stump that needed to be removed from one of the tank bases was removed by 7am this morning. Although they said it would be done by 6pm the day before, we figure better late than never! The bees that had infested parts of the buildings were taken care of. The workers were beginning to fix the clips for the gutters and mix the cement for the tank bases. They also began cleaning and repairing the inside of existing tanks.

           That is where our luck seemed to run out and issues began to arise. Elvis, the foreman, informed us that as his men were cleaning out the inside of the tanks, the roof of the tank was crumbling. That was potential for disaster if one of the roofs were to cave in on someone. After some inspection, it was determined that the wire mesh that was put in to support the roof had fully rusted and so it was decided that the roof needed to be removed and a new one should be put in. But this would mean extra material and time which meant the contractor would need to spend some more money.

             On top of that, solid blocks were delivered to the site for the tank bases, however we specified that the blocks needed to be hollow so they could be reinforced with rebar. When we mentioned this to Elvis he claimed that it was delivered by mistake since people are generally used to constructing with solid block in Kenya. It was now two issues in one day and our love and trust for Elvis was starting to decrease.

             
             Elvis seemed to be managing and kept moving forward; the cement was being mixed and poured and the clips to hold the gutters were being installed. We noticed that the clips were being placed 48 inches apart instead of 24 inches as we specified. This would have been a third strike for Elvis but luckily he quickly told the men installing the gutters to decrease the spacing to 24 inches.

             
              As the day progressed we kept asking Elvis for updates on the tank roofs as well as his plan to replace the solid blocks with hollow blocks. He told us that he agreed it was their job to fix the tank roofs and it should easily be done but he was waiting for the go ahead from his boss. We then discussed the tank bases and saw that the top would not be too high off the ground. Noticing this, it was decided that using hollow block with rebar as opposed to solid block was not crucial so we decided to use this as a negotiation method. We told Elvis that if he ensured that the tank roofs would be taken care of and all the tanks would be appropriately repaired, then we would be okay with them using solid block. While Elvis appreciated this, he said he still needed to wait to hear back from his “boss man”. But since he was taking responsibility and ensuring that the quality of work was still up to par, we decided that we still liked him, but he will need to work hard to win back our love.

             The school was very kind and offered us lunch again. Today we had very tasty chapattis (bread) with green lentils. The food was excellent as usual; maybe because all the food is fresh but generally the food here has been very good and always tastes homemade.

             After lunch we continued to monitor the progress of the work and make sure no other issues came up. At times when we were waiting, our driver Peter entertained us with stories about his childhood. Towards the end of the day we called the contractor (Elvis’ boss) to finalize the tank roofs. He told us he would be meeting with Elvis later today and with us tomorrow morning. So we should find out tomorrow how they worked out the issue and will be fixing the roofs. We left the site at 5 and were greeted once more by many children on our ride back.