Last week, again, I went from hut to hut asking people to come to work. Not much success.
When they don’t have a good answer they say that they are sick, they have a headache.
I was standing in front of a mud house, a half-naked woman was seating at the doorway with two infants, chickens running around, flat look in her eyes, she was probably wandering what did this Yavoo (white person) wants from her life at this early hour of the day.
The work was slow to start on Monday, a lot of wasted time.
We have less than two months and so much to do.
Tuesday morning we had about three people show up by 8:00 AM and by the time the masons started working it was after nine in the morning. In desperation I decided to buy them off and requested the list of all the people that come "continuously" to work. After some hard negotiation and arguments, I received the list. I gave them back the list and told them to advertise among these people that I would pay 5 Cedis per day for anyone that will show up to work before 7:00am.
I also told them that if people would not show up I will hire workers from town to replace them and I will not order the doors and windows.
I made it clear to everyone that we are running out of time and money and this is the school’s money that we are paying. They didn’t like it at all. They refused to be paid for their work and the next morning people showed up starting at 6:30am. Maybe I struck the right nerve. The rest of the week the attendance was reasonably good.
I am continuously amazed by the lack efficiency in their work. They build and break. There is no electricity in Airfield, but I decided to install electrical conduits. We are asking the government to bring electricity to the school, and hope they will. I told my contractor to install the electrical conduits into the pillars, prior to casting it. "no, no, we cannot do it this way,” so now, when the walls are done, an "electrician" is breaking grooves in the walls with a chisel to install the electrical conduits.
I asked them to leave spacers in the septic tanks for the pipes and in the veranda for the poles. "no, no", they have a better way. Of course, after the septic tank is done and the veranda floor was cast, they break the cement to install the pipes and the poles in the cement.
Africa. I try not to judge, but it is difficult.
The roofers, on contract, working seven days a week, are progressing nicely, but they underestimated the material quantity and the cost is piling up. In about a week and a half we will have a roof. Next week we will start the plastering. It is about a three week process.
Tags: africa, building a school in Africa, volunteer in Ghana, volunteering in