Hitesh - Hi! Well what a busy couple of weeks it has been! Although it has been busy, it hasn’t been as frantic as before. Now that the push to get the first family house completed is over, the focus has been to work on the drain field for the current family house, and future family houses. Now you may be thinking, drain field for the family house – but didn’t he say the first family house is finished? Well, the house is more or less there minus a few snagging issues, and although the septic tank is finished, the grey water drain from the septic tank is not quite finished. For those non-Engineers reading this, all the waste water from the house (toilet waste, washing and cleaning water etc) goes in to a septic tank, where bacteria eat all the solids breaking it down. The “grey” water remaining, when the water level in the tank gets high, passes down into a pipe with lots of holes in it and goes into the ground. Now this field with the pipes with holes in it is called the drain field, and will become a football pitch in the future. We managed to buy some time in finishing the drain field as the septic tank is big, plus we’ve taped up the loos to the family house, so the family are still using an outside squatter!
Perforated pipe for the drain field (Note that you cannot buy perforated pipe here in Tanzania. A guy spent nearly two days drilling the holes in each pipe!)
So the last couple of weeks have involved digging trenches and laying pipe in African “sand”, all whilst being violently toasted in the African sun. Actually the sun hasn’t been quite as relentless as it has been when we first got here. The rainy season is starting, so we do get some overcast and wet days, but that has meant that we’ve had to find work to do indoors as the rain is vey heavy. When it has rained, I’ve been mainly working in the family house putting up curtain tracks, shower curtains and door stops.
The pipe laying has been extremely physical and tiring. But I’ve been working with Wayne, who is from
Pipes laid and partially backfilled (for the engineers - nope they're not cement bags with holes punched using a pitching fork, but really the Tanzanian Terram 1000 geotextile!)
We did have a couple of local guys “helping” us. Both were there in body, but only one was actually doing any work. Do you remember me telling you about the guy that was supposed to be digging a trench for me, and didn’t do very much, and I could have done more with a spoon? Well that guy was “helping” too. He managed to shovel a few spadefuls of sand in the morning, but did absolutely nothing in the afternoon. I mean he just sat and watched all afternoon. Did he think we wouldn’t notice? I really would like to know what he was thinking. He even had the audacity to come over at 5pm (clocking off time), to tell me it was 5pm, and time to go home! The reason he specifically told me it was time to go, was that I was driving the pick up truck, and he wanted a lift back! Cheek! To say he did no work in the afternoon is a slight lie, in that as it was gone 5pm, he decided to help us put in a pipe, thinking that we’d pack up after and give him a lift back. But Wayne and I wanted to finish the trench, and we had one other pipe to lay, so once he realised we were staying on, he went off. The sad thing is that Dave also spotted him doing nothing and told him to get back to work. We did tell Dave that he didn’t do anything, and was docked half a day’s pay, and was told not to come back to work. I think it’s a real shame that he wasn’t motivated to work. By western standards, they don’t get a good pay, I think it works out to be just under £2 per day. But, that is actually good by African standards, and Mavuno pay above the minimum wage, and obviously more depending on the skills. Plus it’s obvious that there’s loads of work going on at Mavuno, so surely you want to impress your employer so that he’d keep you on?
I think I’ve given the Africans more bad press than good, which I apologise sincerely. That one guy really sticks out as a bad example. But, the African women work extremely hard, and most of them have a kid attached to their backs whilst they’re carrying stuff or ploughing a field or whatever. Plus the core guys that work at Mavuno are a great bunch. They’re very friendly, very forgiving when I get my Swahili messed up, they work hard, and they are all big supporters of English football! Musa, who looks after all the casual labour and organises the work – sort of a general foreman for the site, is a HUGE Manchester United fan. He says that if you cut his wrist, it will say Man U in his blood! Pretty extreme I know, but he knows the football scores before I do, and he doesn’t have internet! His neighbour has satellite TV and is also a big Man U fan, so they watch the games together, or he listens to the games on the radio, as some of the Tanzanian radio stations air the matches live. The other guys on site all generally support one of the big four – Man U, Arsenal,
English football is very big here in
I’ve been a bit homesick the past couple of weeks, but after a bit of prayer, feel much better and re-energised. Living with the Helsbys was a great start to our trip, but moving into our more basic house, coupled with the physical tiredness of a hard day’s work have affected me. I’ve also realised that I do like my own space, and that’s probably one of the reasons that I like running so much (though I haven’t been doing all that much the past couple of years!), and now that we’re in the village, we are more exposed, and it’s not that easy to have a quiet journey to and from home. Plus we do get the odd “hodi” (Swahili for knocking on an open door) as people drop by and say hi. One other thing that has tainted the last couple of weeks is that fact that I unintentionally “put up my guard” to the locals, due to an unfortunate conversation with a local contractor that worked on site. When we first arrived, I wanted to be open and friendly and was happy to talk to people. This one guy spoke English and would talk to me quite a lot. He then said that he wanted to take my address so that he could write to me. I mentioned it to the Helsbys, and it turns out that this guy was only trying to get my address to ask me for money. He would regularly speak to Dave asking for more money for the contract as Dave was his “little rich man” and needed to look after him. I’m happy to give, but not when I’m hounded for money, or when someone is trying it on. This happened in my first week at Mavuno, so I put up my guard, and has made me a bit suspicious with the locals here in the village. We do get the odd kid turn up wanting money, but generally the people have been extremely welcoming and friendly, and my suspicions have been unfounded. It’s amazing how one bad experience can affect you so profoundly.
Esther relaxing after a hard day!
Lucy & Esther looking at the local wildlife
No comments:
Post a Comment