All Posts now done!

It seems that since that last post we had to go a few more rounds with the neighbours, and the city council. But now all is set and all the posts have been set in concrete, bracing was going up today, we have checked the dimensions between posts and for the opening gates and very soon the mesh will start to be stretched!

The first is always the hardest

The first corner post at Malibuseng went up today… (we failed to mention it in the first post but Malibuseng is a local orphanage that Sentebale has helped to set up, we are now fencing it to increase the security and the quality of life of the children that reside there, for more info on Malibuseng or any of the other projects we are involved with please click on the links on the right)

This might not sound as a big achievement but given the discussion that broke out yesterday because of the position of the fence going to inspect the site at lunch time today and finding the first post being cast was quite an event.

Yesterday we spent quite a good part of our afternoon trying to mediate a dispute between the neighbours and the orphanage. It seems that the official limits that with had been given by the lands department were not good enough for some of the neighbours.

They argued that we should leave at least 8-10 meters between the edge of their site and the fence of Malibuseng. Quite an understandable wish if it was not for the fact the the lands department had marked on our drawing only 3 and the fact that 10m would mean having to knock down a corner of the building…

By the end of the discussion, we were all exhausted, having even proposed to leave 7 meters, which was really as far as we could go without having to move the waterline to the site, we left feeling rather defeated.

This morning other people from our office went over to try their luck, this time they took with them officials of different departments and even the local chief was summoned! An agreement was reached eventually but sadly one where we were forced to concede almost and extra meter.

It is disappointing that we had to compromise so much and that none of the other parties was able to do the same, despite that at least now we can proceed with our work and hopefully soon the fence will be finished and this entire episode will be a thing of the past.

1, 2... 3, Start!

It should have really been: On your marks, get ready… oh no, wait a second, maybe a little more, hmmm… not quite sure, oh yes, start! But either way here we go!

Camille and I got to Maseru exactly 10 weeks ago, full of energy and hoping for a lot to do! Can’t say we didn’t get what we were waiting for, there was plenty waiting for us to get stuck straight into… And that has been good, honestly!

What really hasn’t been so good is the time it has taken us to get some of the small projects going… The fence around Malibuseng was something we thought that we’d have up and finished in less than a month, and it was kind of looking promising, well once we had battled for a while with the Land Authority to establish the official limits of the site.

We had all the drawings ready, specifications written, a contractor lined up (more of a Building Unit from the local builders school), but when they gave us their quote, well let’s just say it looked a little inflated. So we played cat and mouse for a while, and eventually 2-3 weeks later (yes there was a bit of political instability, true, a stay away even, but still…) we gave up and just told him that he had 3 days to review his quote (and re-issue it, this time itemized), we also asked for a couple more quotes to see how it would all compare and got the neighbour’s contractor to start leveling the site (we had to do something, one can’ wait forever).

The deadline came for the quotes to arrive and we were informed that the Building Unit had decided not to submit, not really a surprise, as much as a disappointment, because it would have been a good way to work with the guys fresh out of school. Anyway our two remaining quotes were quite comparable and following a few more talks we managed to agree on most issues. So today we had our contractor on site and we started setting out the fence.

Actually it was the first time that it happened to any of us to have a contractor call and say that he was waiting… We were actually still in a meeting with the JTC that ran long (but that is a story for another day).

It’s taken a while, and we haven’t really got anywhere yet, but at least it’s a start!