Arrived back in Rwanda on 9/23/10 after a 2 week stay back in Seattle. Was great to be home and see family, friends, good beer, normal food, and sleep in my own bed. 14 days is to short a stay though as you have 3 days travel from door to door and it takes some time to get used to the time difference, 9hrs. Also was difficult to adapt from running 180 mph working on the school to a very relaxed atmosphere back home. Stayed close to home most of the time resting and visiting friends at the Dog. Had several visits with my family and got fattened up with many wonderful meals by my Mom. Made a trip to Skykomish to take in the beauty and have a visit at the Whistling Post. On the way back to Rwanda flight was canceled in Ethiopia after waiting at the terminal 4 hrs. Ended up spending the night in a minus 1 star hotel and left the next morning. Only plus to the ordeal was the amazingly beautiful women in Ethiopia!
Back to 180 as soon as I arrived back. Tom came over from Seattle to take over while I was away and did a wonderful job managing the project for me. We have 10 weeks to complete the project starting tomorrow. Much work to complete in this time. Hygebat finally finished the site grading and utilities design last week, way to late. This site work is now our biggest risk to complete.Friday was making sure they are following the design. Have issues where they are not. They keep filling areas and not following the grading plans. Some cut bank areas that are not to exceed 1.5 meters are now close to 2 meters. Spent several hours trying to make them understand that they must set grade stakes. Difficult when they either do not or speak little english. Not quite sure they fully understood so had to address with Hygebats owner Mugabo. Anxious to see results Monday.
Spending quite a few meetings with Mugabo these days addressing schedule. Even though they have approx 100 workers on site they need 100 more. Had to have a difficult discussion with him that his on site supervision is lacking, and that he needs a Superintendent that can drive this project to completion. Where is Mike Finney when I need him! Tried to be as gentle as possible but not my strong suit. Meeting went as well as could be expected. Mugabo felt that they need to address by more detailed scheduling. Advised him this would be good but he must make sure the field executes the schedule. I must continue to persist on the issue with Mugabo.
Some good news is that the metal roof sheets arrived on Friday and install began yesterday. Next pictures I issue should indicate quite the change in progress on the buildings. Interior plastering, electrical and plumbing roughin, setting of windows/doors is just ahead of schedule. should be starting ceilings in the next couple of weeks. Very interesting how they roughin plumbing and electrical. In the states you roughin as block work progresses. Here they complete the block work and plastering of walls and then they come in with a pick ax and carve a opening in the wall then re-plaster. No sense arguing process as this is the way they do it.
With all said I am still great full for the experience. Each day is a new experience filled with many frustrations. I am hopeful that the people I am working with will learn and take something good away from the experience. The end goal is to provide a school for girls. Come hell or high water we will get there!
