Sorry for the delay in getting this blog up...it's been a very busy week as you'll read. Hope you enjoy it.
Day 24: Tuesday 19th April
Today was the day after Phase 1 had left. It felt a bit strange on site, as there were all these new people taking over and working away. It felt like it might take a couple of days to get used to Phase 2 being here. The weather was pretty rubbish today too, very overcast and actually quite cold so it didn’t help with picking up spirits. Although the timber had arrived the day before, so there was a lot to be getting on with on site.
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| Concrete slab on the dining block being power floated |
The treated columns sections arrived with the timber delivery so the columns began to be made. Half were completed before the end of the day ready for the first lift tomorrow. The base plates for the trusses were secured into place and the slab for Classroom A was laid.
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| First classroom trusses and columns ready to lift |
Work on the toilet block also began today. The timber for the trusses arrived in the delivery yesterday so the pieces were cut and assembly began on the first truss. Jigs were also constructed to help with the construction.
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| First assembled toilet truss - mini jouberton style! |
Today was the first day that trusses were lifted and the building came to life. The morning went by pretty quickly attaching the columns to the truss members. It’s quite difficult to line up about 5 pieces of timber that have all been individually drilled to get a bolt through them. With a little bit of patience though, it seemed to come together quite smoothly. Also with a bit of hammering and tweaking! In the afternoon we managed to raise the first two trusses. It felt like a very big achievement and we could see for the first time the scale of the buildings.
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| First truss in place |
The procedure to raise the truss is completely manual and all done with a bit of heavy lifting. The truss gets moved in line with the base plates. Ropes are attached to form as lifting and braking lines with teams allocated on all of them. The truss is lifted and raised and walked up with the use of the ropes. It is maneuvered slowly onto the base plates using levers and secured with two bolts. Once we had got the first one in place, the second one was a lot easier to get in place. The first truss was secured down with its ropes and once the second truss was in place, they were temporarily braced together.
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| Footing detail |
We managed to complete the set of columns and truss member for the third truss ready to lift the next day. Fingers crossed we can also get the fourth one ready and then lifted.
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| 2nd truss lifted in place and temporarily braced to the first one |
The sun eventually came out today, it got pretty hot – similar to the UK I guess! But I was very silly and forgot to apply my sun cream so got very burnt across my shoulders, chest and arms! Oops! Lets hopes it just tans.
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| Truss high in the sky |
The weather was looking pretty bad today again. It was very cold compared to what we were used to. During the morning on site we managed to complete truss 3 and 4 and just before lunch we raised truss 3 and secured it into place. By the end of the day the aim was to complete the trusses for Classroom B, however it had been threatening to rain all day and at just about 2pm the heavens opened and a storm hit the area. We all had to shelter from the storm and get the tools and equipment under cover as soon as possible. The trusses we had raised would just have to get wet and bear the brunt of the storm. Most of the team sheltered in the tool shed waiting for the taxis to arrive and some of us hid in the car. The rain was not letting up but luckily the taxis arrived within the hour and we made our way back to the Hotel. It was an early end to the day and a shame we couldn’t get the final truss of Classroom B up. We all just hoped not too much damage would be done to site and the materials.
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| The torrential storm hit |
That night, three of the guys from Phase 1 who had been travelling for the week came back to Tzaneen. They will be remaining with us for the rest of the build now. Some extra manpower is vitally needed. It was also 2nd year student, Laura Sheridan’s birthday so we headed out to Mozambique restaurant to let Phase 2 experience the amazing all you can eat prawns! All had a really good night and it was a great chance to get to know some of the new group.
Day 27: Friday 22nd April
Today we had a late start to the day as I helped out the three Phase 1 guys with taking back their rental car and Laura was feeling a bit delicate from the night before. We managed to get to site and join the rest of the team about 10am but it had been quite badly affected by the storm. It was so wet and muddy. It was extremely difficult to walk in certain areas. The weather didn’t seem to be getting much better to dry out the site either. Let’s hope it picks up over the weekend.
After cleaning the slabs we managed to start work on the final truss and other areas of work. The final truss of Classroom B was raised before lunch, which meant the first classroom was complete! It was a very exciting moment for us all as you can now really see the space of the classroom and how it fits of site. As it was now complete, work could begin on the intermediate columns on either side of the classroom. We marked up where the base plates would go for each one, drilled holes into the slabs, secured the bolts in and then the base plates. We managed to install one of the columns and prepared the rest for installation on Monday.
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| First classroom superstructure complete |
The WC trusses have been making progress and by the end of the day, 2 trusses had been completed. These are completely different in design to the classroom trusses. They’re like mini-Jouberton trusses if you’ve seen that project.
The weather this week has had quite an effect on our schedule and we’re a little behind – well about a week behind if I’m honest. Hopefully this weekend we can put some plans in place to keep us on track and make sure we complete the 2 classrooms. I think this will be our last weekend off as over the next 2 weeks there is 4 bank holidays which means we are restricted by what we can do. With a bit of planning though I’m sure we’ll make it and finish the build.
Day 28: Saturday 23rd April
This morning we woke up yet again to the sound of rain. Great! Rather than spending the day just slobbing around in the apartment we headed out for a drive up the mountain to check out the adventure centre. As it was pretty cold, there wasn’t many activities going on but we arranged to come back tomorrow if the weather was better to go gecko-tubing. You travel down the river on small yellow dingy individually through rapids and waterfalls. Looked pretty awesome in the video we watched.
In the evening we ended up having a girly night watching films and chatting. As it turned midnight and we moved into Easter Sunday, I was able to have my first bit of chocolate for 40 days! Yay! Even though it was South African Cadburys, which isn’t exactly the same, it was amazing! Best thing ever! Can’t wait to try some more of the chocolate out here, the variety of Cadburys flavours is pretty great.
Day 29: Sunday 24th April
Happy Easter Everyone!
Today we discovered a new supermarket in town and found some Easter eggs, well little kinder eggs. They would be our treat after finishing tubing. We headed back up the mountains, signed in and got kited out ready for our adventure.
Tubing was absolutely incredible! It started off pretty adventurous as one of the first challenges we had to tackle was jumping down 2 waterfalls. The first one was about 5m high and the girls nominated me to go first. It was so scary as for this jump you need to jump out further than normal as the rocks protruded out beneath. After a quick 3, 2, 1, the next thing I knew I was in the water and fine. Was so exhilarating. The next jump was 8m, so about the height of a 2 storey house. Luckily on this one there were no protruding rocks so not as scary but still so high. Over the rest of the trip we travelling through a few sets of rapids and floated along stretches of the river. I came off my dingy a couple of times but spent most of my time above the water. The last waterfall was absolutely stunning, we were only observing this one though as the water was flowing too fast due to the heavy rainfall lately. We walked round the edge and them swam across a safer area to get to the other side to finish our adventure.
We drove back to the hotel feeling very tired. We had a briefing planned in the evening so a quick shower, nap and food before rounded off a great day.
Day 30: Monday 25th April
After the briefing the night before, we had a tight schedule and some high targets to meet.
In the morning we completed the columns for Classroom A in preparation for raising all the trusses in the afternoon. The intermediate columns were completed on Classroom B and the truss members were ready to be connected to the columns. We managed to connect the first truss member with its columns and raised it before lunch, 35mins ahead of schedule. Things were looking promising. The weather had also improved and at about 2pm we checked the thermometer on the car and it was at 41 degrees! Not sure it was that hot but we were all pleased that it was hotter than the UK for once this week!
The afternoon was extremely busy connecting columns to truss members and raising them. By 5pm we were a little behind schedule but the last truss was raised and we left site a little later than normal at 5:30pm having completed the superstructure for the classrooms. They look great and we now have so much to do to make them into classrooms. Only 10 days to go, let’s hope we can keep this productivity up.
In other areas on site, three WC trusses were completed and the final two have been assembled. We have run out of bolts temporarily and due to the bank holiday we are unable to get some more until tomorrow.
To celebrate such a productive day, we all headed out to Spurs for some food.
John Ramsay also arrived back in South Africa after being back in the UK for 2 weeks. Another pair of hands on site is always useful.
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