A lot more paint!
This was another full week on site. I had planned to head out early Monday morning but they sent an order for medicines in by text so I had to wait until the pharmacy opened Monday morning to go buy those items. After getting the items and stopping to buy some bread for meals I was on the Noah bus (named because most of them are Toyota Noah minivans). Once again we had to wait until we had a full load so it was about 40 minutes before it took off. At the drop off in Katusha they tried to charge me for my backpack this time since I had other bags. Argument lasted about 10 minutes with me not paying them anything before getting on the Piki Piki (motorcycle) headed out to the village. So after the medicine delay, waiting on the bus to fill up and 3 hours of actual travel time it was around noon when I arrived.
I had planned to jump right on painting the inside of the main cistern tank. However, it had rained again. So the first thing I had to do was get the ladder in there and started dewatering it again. This time I removed 26 buckets of water and no mud as the gutters were disconnected and only the ran that runs in the cracks of the pipes and manhole from the roof of the tank was collected. I had not replaced my mop (that wonderful space age technology from last week that lasted one job) and instead used one of my shirts to soak up water and then wring the shirt out into the bucket after it got below what I could collect in a cup.
I also made an extension cord so I could connect the fan I bought to the solar power AC supply strip. I had hoped to rent a generator but everyone wanted enough for a weeks rental to buy a new one in town. This worked well, except when I used it for a full day (11 hours) it did drain the battery down a good bit. I was pleased though 11 hours on full blast.
So you probably wonder why I was using a fan. This was one of my safety requirements I put on this job. The main cistern is a confined space with limited air flow even with everything open. The first concern is my breathing the oxygen and replacing it with Carbon Dioxide, but also possibly algae or fungi that use the oxygen as well and most importantly the fumes not only from the paint but also the thinner used. So I created a safety plan that was more common sense than OSHA approved. I would use the fan over the manhole opening to force fresh air inside the tank, all paint would be mixed with thinner outside the tank and I was required to come outside the tank once an hour for a fresh air/water. This seemed to work as I am here to write the blog.
Monday finished up as it turned dark, so I went to get some bath water (cold as I have not had a chance to connect my stove and did not want to start a charcoal fire just for bath water). Junior the bat that lives in the latrine hole was lively and as I stood to do my business before bathing he flew up and hit me in the head. After that I made myself a delicious PBJ with the JIF I found in Arusha this last trip and some of the low sugar grape jelly my family sent. I spent some time doing accounting and talking with William before reading some of a Zane Gray novel.
Tuesday morning was up early at 6:15 AM and dressed for work which I went straight to. Breakfast here is later in the day. I went right to painting the inside of the tank. There is 3500 square feet inside the tank including the ceiling and floor. The paint I was using was a special bitumastic paint that runs in consistency between tar and used motor oil. To use this paint you have to mix it with thinner at about 10 % of the volume. So it was really like used motor oil and as I tried to paint the ceiling it just ran everywhere-mostly on me. One great fact is the new folding ladder put up into scaffold form puts both ends about a foot off the walls so I used this for painting the ceiling and the top third of the tank wall. Porridge was at 10 am and everyone on site normally partakes of this as breakfast. Then it was back inside the tank. I finished the first coat at about 7:45 PM including all the one hour air breaks. I decided to leave the ladder in the tank as I was pretty exhausted. I kept thinking of Karate Kid jokes as I painted up and down then right and left.
One of the things I needed to do at the start of the day was determine if the concrete was dry enough to paint. I used an old Mason's trick for determining if bricks are adequately wet to use. The idea is to put a metal coin over the surface and leave it for a while and then check it. On bricks if the surface around the coin is dry and the area under the coin is moist or wet they are adequately wet as the cold metal will draw the moisture to the surface. I wanted no moisture under the coin though to prove it was dry enough to paint and it passed.
Again it was time for me to draw my bath water and fix a PBJ sandwich. After that it was time to prepare for the staff meeting William and I were having with all the employees to discuss what they would like for us to do with any leftover short term maintenance money as well as discuss their new ongoing medicine and pre-school budgets an accomplishment I am very proud to have initiated.
Apparently like most things on Tanzania time, starting first thing in the morning does not actually mean what I thought but instead the staff meeting started after the school started and we found someone to sit with the kids while the teachers joined us instead of you know before school started.
The meeting went well but I now have a lot of items to translate which don't appear to be in any of the translation dictionaries I own or in my electronic one on the tablet. So I still have a lot of work to find out everything they would like but I think it was an important step in making them feel included in the site and as part of the ministry.
After that I changed into work clothes and went to paint a second coat on the tank but the first coat was still not dry so instead I went to work repairing the gutters installed last year by a contractor out of Arusha that were not done correctly. So I have pull all the gutters, change the fittings to one that have seals and supports so they don't leak, replace the downspout piping to the correct size of 90 mm instead of 75 mm. (actually would love it if they were 110 mm but we would have to replace the entire guttering system to do that). The downspouts then have to put into the tanks with a proper entrance instead of just an open manhole cover inviting mosquitoes and birds. The fascia boards also need to have paint on them since they are often in contact with water.
I did the Ward building and Medical Clinic first. So Wednesday and Thursday that was about 10 hours a day up and down the ladder to remove the guttering, paint five feet of fascia board at a time and then reinstall the guttering. One last thing that had to be done to the guttering was adjust the supports to create the proper fall. In some areas they had the bubble full tilt and some times it was actually tilted in the wrong direction. Now those gutters are back up and installed correctly with fascia boards that have two coats of paint. I did not reconnect the gutters to the main cistern yet in case it rains before I finish the project.
Friday morning was another early day and into the tank. I got the second coat done in about 7 1/2 hours and spent the rest of the day repairing some of the water spigots on the new tanks so they have the seal nut on the inside of the tank. I also repaired the sink drain piping that I had repaired using duct tape previously. Amazingly finding solvent weld reducers is impossible. So I had to buy threaded reducer and cut out the threads and use pipe thread tape and PVC glue to get a good seal between the 1 1/4" and 1 " pipes.
Now for some of the humor of the week. When I went to the black plastic tank to install the seal nut I measured myself up against it and saw that standing on the bottom I would have my arms sticking out and could pull myself up. So I decided to be smart and take a bucket to stand on with me and tied a string to the bucket so I could pull it out after I climbed out. I had a helper from the Fundis help me by holding the spigot on the outside as I went in and installed the nut and tightened it. Then as I tried to climb out I realized they built the tank pad wrong but you can't notice it on the outside of the tank. The center is lower than the rest of the tank. So I am not sticking out enough even on the bucket to get myself out. Then one of the Fundis gets on top of the tank to help pull me out but the opening is so small I cannot get my leg out to leverage myself while he let go. Finally I show them how to operate the folding ladder and we stick the top part in first because the support legs are too wide.
Good news was that the second one was made correctly and I was able to lift myself out with no problem. Bad news was that I busted my bath bucket in the process.
I had planned to jump right on painting the inside of the main cistern tank. However, it had rained again. So the first thing I had to do was get the ladder in there and started dewatering it again. This time I removed 26 buckets of water and no mud as the gutters were disconnected and only the ran that runs in the cracks of the pipes and manhole from the roof of the tank was collected. I had not replaced my mop (that wonderful space age technology from last week that lasted one job) and instead used one of my shirts to soak up water and then wring the shirt out into the bucket after it got below what I could collect in a cup.
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| fan and scaffold in the tank. The fan is helping to dry out the floor of the tank. |
I also made an extension cord so I could connect the fan I bought to the solar power AC supply strip. I had hoped to rent a generator but everyone wanted enough for a weeks rental to buy a new one in town. This worked well, except when I used it for a full day (11 hours) it did drain the battery down a good bit. I was pleased though 11 hours on full blast.
So you probably wonder why I was using a fan. This was one of my safety requirements I put on this job. The main cistern is a confined space with limited air flow even with everything open. The first concern is my breathing the oxygen and replacing it with Carbon Dioxide, but also possibly algae or fungi that use the oxygen as well and most importantly the fumes not only from the paint but also the thinner used. So I created a safety plan that was more common sense than OSHA approved. I would use the fan over the manhole opening to force fresh air inside the tank, all paint would be mixed with thinner outside the tank and I was required to come outside the tank once an hour for a fresh air/water. This seemed to work as I am here to write the blog.
Monday finished up as it turned dark, so I went to get some bath water (cold as I have not had a chance to connect my stove and did not want to start a charcoal fire just for bath water). Junior the bat that lives in the latrine hole was lively and as I stood to do my business before bathing he flew up and hit me in the head. After that I made myself a delicious PBJ with the JIF I found in Arusha this last trip and some of the low sugar grape jelly my family sent. I spent some time doing accounting and talking with William before reading some of a Zane Gray novel.
Tuesday morning was up early at 6:15 AM and dressed for work which I went straight to. Breakfast here is later in the day. I went right to painting the inside of the tank. There is 3500 square feet inside the tank including the ceiling and floor. The paint I was using was a special bitumastic paint that runs in consistency between tar and used motor oil. To use this paint you have to mix it with thinner at about 10 % of the volume. So it was really like used motor oil and as I tried to paint the ceiling it just ran everywhere-mostly on me. One great fact is the new folding ladder put up into scaffold form puts both ends about a foot off the walls so I used this for painting the ceiling and the top third of the tank wall. Porridge was at 10 am and everyone on site normally partakes of this as breakfast. Then it was back inside the tank. I finished the first coat at about 7:45 PM including all the one hour air breaks. I decided to leave the ladder in the tank as I was pretty exhausted. I kept thinking of Karate Kid jokes as I painted up and down then right and left.
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| ceiling and first level painted |
One of the things I needed to do at the start of the day was determine if the concrete was dry enough to paint. I used an old Mason's trick for determining if bricks are adequately wet to use. The idea is to put a metal coin over the surface and leave it for a while and then check it. On bricks if the surface around the coin is dry and the area under the coin is moist or wet they are adequately wet as the cold metal will draw the moisture to the surface. I wanted no moisture under the coin though to prove it was dry enough to paint and it passed.
Again it was time for me to draw my bath water and fix a PBJ sandwich. After that it was time to prepare for the staff meeting William and I were having with all the employees to discuss what they would like for us to do with any leftover short term maintenance money as well as discuss their new ongoing medicine and pre-school budgets an accomplishment I am very proud to have initiated.
Apparently like most things on Tanzania time, starting first thing in the morning does not actually mean what I thought but instead the staff meeting started after the school started and we found someone to sit with the kids while the teachers joined us instead of you know before school started.
The meeting went well but I now have a lot of items to translate which don't appear to be in any of the translation dictionaries I own or in my electronic one on the tablet. So I still have a lot of work to find out everything they would like but I think it was an important step in making them feel included in the site and as part of the ministry.
After that I changed into work clothes and went to paint a second coat on the tank but the first coat was still not dry so instead I went to work repairing the gutters installed last year by a contractor out of Arusha that were not done correctly. So I have pull all the gutters, change the fittings to one that have seals and supports so they don't leak, replace the downspout piping to the correct size of 90 mm instead of 75 mm. (actually would love it if they were 110 mm but we would have to replace the entire guttering system to do that). The downspouts then have to put into the tanks with a proper entrance instead of just an open manhole cover inviting mosquitoes and birds. The fascia boards also need to have paint on them since they are often in contact with water.
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| fascia board installed last year and condition of paint |
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| fittings with seals |
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| they actually installed this as a piece of downspout piping with the split |
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| they ran out of supports so they just screwed the guttering to the fascia board |
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| fall in the wrong direction. |
I did the Ward building and Medical Clinic first. So Wednesday and Thursday that was about 10 hours a day up and down the ladder to remove the guttering, paint five feet of fascia board at a time and then reinstall the guttering. One last thing that had to be done to the guttering was adjust the supports to create the proper fall. In some areas they had the bubble full tilt and some times it was actually tilted in the wrong direction. Now those gutters are back up and installed correctly with fascia boards that have two coats of paint. I did not reconnect the gutters to the main cistern yet in case it rains before I finish the project.
Friday morning was another early day and into the tank. I got the second coat done in about 7 1/2 hours and spent the rest of the day repairing some of the water spigots on the new tanks so they have the seal nut on the inside of the tank. I also repaired the sink drain piping that I had repaired using duct tape previously. Amazingly finding solvent weld reducers is impossible. So I had to buy threaded reducer and cut out the threads and use pipe thread tape and PVC glue to get a good seal between the 1 1/4" and 1 " pipes.
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| filing out the threads to make a socket weld reducer |
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| new drain assy |
Now for some of the humor of the week. When I went to the black plastic tank to install the seal nut I measured myself up against it and saw that standing on the bottom I would have my arms sticking out and could pull myself up. So I decided to be smart and take a bucket to stand on with me and tied a string to the bucket so I could pull it out after I climbed out. I had a helper from the Fundis help me by holding the spigot on the outside as I went in and installed the nut and tightened it. Then as I tried to climb out I realized they built the tank pad wrong but you can't notice it on the outside of the tank. The center is lower than the rest of the tank. So I am not sticking out enough even on the bucket to get myself out. Then one of the Fundis gets on top of the tank to help pull me out but the opening is so small I cannot get my leg out to leverage myself while he let go. Finally I show them how to operate the folding ladder and we stick the top part in first because the support legs are too wide.
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| installed the drain pipes correctly |
Good news was that the second one was made correctly and I was able to lift myself out with no problem. Bad news was that I busted my bath bucket in the process.
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| mix of regular and rain clouds |
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| sunset over school |
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| sunset on dramatic mode |
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| we started a garden using the rain water harvested during the dry season |
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| about to pour the floor of the latrine |
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| shower drain pipe connector finished |
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| cement plaster on walls of bath house |
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| window screen on bath house |
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| floor of the latrine poured. They set bricks in it to bust out for the vent and hole you do your business. This one will have a seat since patients will use it. |
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| killed another snake that set up camp in the guttering overnight and found him while cleaning the gutters |
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| moon rise-yes a moon rise |
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| new floor in bath house on one side |
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| these birds have been migrating through recently. |
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