Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Most that know me also know about my love of all things concrete.  From concrete canoes to translucent concrete in buildings, I have always loved concrete as both a building material with structural properties but also as an artistic element. When my parents first moved into their house in the Rolling Green retirement community, I did several upgrade projects for them.  The hardest was the back patio expansion.  Partly it was harder because the person in charge of approving architectural changes would not let us pour concrete to the existing concrete curbs.  Instead only to the building extents.  This meant there were about two feet between the patios and the existing concrete curbs.  We came up with a pretty decent solution of using river rock and concrete stepping stones that can be easily moved to fill the space.   Mom wanted to stain the back patio and seal it to hide some of the rust stains from her furniture.  I have stained co...

Last week I put out a couple of questions and some beginning of projects so I wanted to follow up.  First the above picture is from a friend's balcony who lives in Kinampanda which is along the ridge line before you drive into the valley where I live.  This is her view overlooking said valley.  I had to visit Kinampanda with work this week so stopped in to see her after I heard she got stung by a bee again and missed a day of teaching.   Next the answers to the questions that frankly I was shocked no one even ventured a guess about.  All my engineering and creative friends and no one guess!  I guess I should offered something more than imaginary or useless points but since they do it on Whose Line is it Anyway I thought I could get away with it. Why does we need to add more water here to get the same workability or mix strength as we would say in South Carolina or even Peru?  The answer has to do with the dryness here but specifically the fact i...

This week has been a great cross section of what life is often like here so I thought I would do a discussion of major events of each day this last week.  This blog will hopefully illustrate some of the frustrations of being white in Tanzania as well as many of the frustrations with individuals/groups but it will also  hopefully show how some are really great as well. Monday:  I typically stay in Singida, the nearest town, through Monday morning because when I need to purchase medicines it can only be done on Monday morning.  This particular week I don't need to buy medicines but I do have to pick up items for the site.  So I got up like normal at my hotel and had hot water for my shower but not much water pressure.  After that it is time to pack everything up in my two bags for the trip home.  One bag is nothing but the computer and it's accessories.  I don't normally eat breakfast on travel days just to prevent stomach problems so I was ch...