With the funding arriving from Tullow Oil, we are able to buy bulk materials and move the project forward. We have had two 20m3 trucks deliver aggregates from a quarry near Takoradi, as well hundreds of steel reinforcement bars to complete the concrete works, and timber for the concreting formwork. The hardwood Dahoma has been ordered and as soon as it arrives we will employ more carpenters to begin cutting and fitting all the truss elements for the roof structure. The timber truss will be connected to the reinforced concrete ringbeam by bolts into a welded steel “shoe”, cast into the ringbeam. There are about 20 shoes for each classroom which are now being fabricated at a local welder’s shop.
Meanwhile two classrooms have complete concrete foundations, the third with blinding poured ready to build cages and install reused formwork. The 1st classroom has stone and sand build up ready for the reinforced concrete slab, columns ready to pour, and ring beam reinforcement cages progressing. The 2nd classroom has a levelled footprint ready for slab build up, and column reinforcement cages are progressing.
Elsewhere the carpenters are busy tweaking the column formwork, crafting the ringbeam formwork, and extending the foundation formwork for the larger 3rd classroom.
The stabilized soil block man has started on site with two apprentices. He has retained his James Bond nickname from his time working on the Dwabor project. Being a part-time boxer, he is a beast of a specimen and hugely impressive to watch as his bulging arms pound the mix into the block press, scattering earth and flying sweat. His small team works ferociously pressing about 150 blocks in a day (current record is 25 seconds/block) using a mix of 2 parts cement, 1 part Pozzolana (clay based local cement replacement), and 48 parts sieved soil from the site. This ratio was based on a simple shrinkage test on the soil to ensure it is not too sandy or clayey. The soil blocks will be used for non load-bearing low level wall infill panels for the classrooms as well as structural walls for the toilet pits and kitchen block. We need about 3000 in total which will take a few weeks to finish. Then they need to be stored in a dry shaded place (tent) for a month to gain strength. A sample will be tested locally to ensure correct strength is attained.
The grader finally came to level the football park. This is a huge relief for everyone involved, as it is a large expense and fairly unpredictable work. Generally everybody is happy with the result, so now we need to set out the pitch and goals and get the school planting grass.
The majority of the drainage swales surrounding the site and pitch are now complete, with just a few small sections remaining, and 3 bridges and 3 fords to finish. Using only voluntary community labour, it is impressive to see the extent of this earthworks, and I am very happy to see that during a recent heavy rain (please stay away for a bit longer!) they performed brilliantly, removing the flooding issue on the lower park. However, this work has taken its toll on the community labour turnout, as it was repetitive and hard in the hot sun for two months. We tried to vary it as much as we could, but it had to be completed before the rains, and the community asked us to extend the work to recover additional land from the flooded zone. The repetitive hard work coupled with some local political issues between the chief, elders, gangs, and police saw the gang attendance plummet to 1 or 2 per day. With more interesting and varied work on the actual classrooms, and dispute resolution, attendance is now at a more respectable 5 or 6 per day. With the work getting busier, and the deadline getting closer, we need to increase both the community labour pool and the paid skilled workforce. We will supplement the daily gangs with task based super gangs, whereby for a large single task the community will gather additional labour for a day to complete it in one go. This is to be tested on Wednesday when 20 women will bring their head pans to place the hardcore under the 2nd classroom slab! The skilled paid labour pool must also grow over the next few weeks with a push on completing the reinforcement works, as well as getting more masons (for concrete, block-work, rendering, etc), carpenters (formwork, truss roof, etc) and general labourers.
The focus now is to get the 1st classroom covered before the rains come, and continue the reinforced concrete for the other two classrooms.
Volunteers Alice and Tina from Davis Langdon were helping on site for a week, and with the grading done, they were able to erect the front fence, as well as get involved with the gangs on the floor build up. Mark and Lee from the UK were construction volunteers for two weeks, and helped the gangs sieving the soil for the soil blocks and then assisted James Bond in production, as well as levelling the 2nd classroom. It is interesting to see the increased productivity of the community gangs when working with the Sabre volunteers. We also had a party of fourteen 17 year-olds from the US, led by long time Sabre friend Erin Janca, who were a flurry of activity, excitement and emotion. To find out more about their week long stay please check out the Sabre photo site sabretrust.smugmug.com.
Here are some photos. Please view by SET.
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