Maisie Wong's Blog

In the morning checked on the guys work. They still continued to put in blocks to fill in gaps for the door frames, but the door frames still looked like really bad quality. Got very annoyed at them because they still continued not to listen, so I asked them politely to take them out and finish off the door frames before we installed them. This annoyed some of the people, but for me I would never be proud of the building with such bad quality. I tried to explain this to the guys and they just didn’t quite get what I was trying to say about being proud of your work.

 There was one particular door frame where the height of the door frame was completely different. So where there were two doors next to each other it just looked really bad. If the architect had come out to see he would have had a heart attack!!!!!!

 Over at the orphanage, it turned out that the workers wanted 300,000 shillings per tank. Crazy. Both Judith and I told them how we felt. It was unbelievable what they were asking for. The workers were complaining because they were saying that ‘outside’ this is ‘cheap’. I could not believe or accept this…. So we ended up saying that if no one was happy to dig it, then we’d leave it until later or hire caterpillar diggers or even use other people. They were not happy that day!

 We also had further issues with the block makers. The three of them block makers had decided to go ‘on strike’ unless we paid them more money. This just meant they had monopolised the whole situation and that we could not continue to make blocks. I could not believe their cheek!!!!!!! We ended up threatening them that we’d go to use burnt clay bricks instead since we thought clay bricks were cheaper. Then suddenly they had nothing else to say.

 I did some checking of costs for the bricks and blocks with Judith in the evening. Bricks were cheaper.

 When checking, I suddenly realised how expensive stone dust was.

Today I left Judith to look after the orphanage whilst I came back to the medical centre to make sure all was going well.

 Judith continued working on the foundations for the dorms and tried to set out the latrine, but there was conflicting information about sizes between drawings and what the final design was, ie. if the latrines were lifted off the ground or not.

 I continued at the medical centre making sure the doors and ceilings were getting made smoothly.

In the evening, Judith had still not arrived till 7pm and I got really worried that something had happened to her…. Bearing in mind she did not really know the way back home. Mmmmm.

It has now been 40 days that I have been here. It’s getting really tiring and I’m feeling exhausted. Its really hard working 6 days a week from 8am till 6pm. Am finding it difficult to get motivated in the mornings when I start to think of all the work there is to do and the stress.

 The old two hens are being really mean to the new hen. They are pecking at her every time she goes near the cock. When I left the house, I saw the new hen playing alone and the others were all together. Very mean….. Am hoping they will become friends soon. I gave the new hen some food to eat so that she wasn’t sad.

 Today is the last day of work for Tim and Eve. In the morning Eve stayed in the house to finish off some of the details for the Medical Centre whilst I came over to see how the work was going at the Medical Centre. When I got there, I saw the Goat that was about to get killed. They wanted to wait until someone from EFOD got there before it got slaughtered. EVERYONE wanted a photo with the goat. This was really really sad because I knew it was about to be killed. Am thinking of becoming a vegetarian.

 Wanted to go and help them all in the kitchen, but there was soooooo many flies…. I decided not to.

 The guys at the medical centre are cracking on with the doors and ceilings. They were sanding down the doors ready so that they can be cut and fitted. Even Robert Echeru was helping out… he’s going to be working in the medical centre when it is up and running as the resident Dentist.

 When I checked how they were installing the doors, I almost died…… I found out they had knocked out huge chunks out of the columns supporting the ring beam and roof truss, plus huge huge chunks out of the ground flood slab where the frames sat in. I managed to convince them they did not need to cut into the columns and slab much at all and tried to come to some compromises about how we would tie in the frame to the walls/ columns. Since all the openings were wider than standard door sizes, we decided to make the door frames smaller and pack out the gap with more blocks. This is definitely something I will make sure the future designers will stick to.

 At the orphanage, they continued to set out the male dorm 3 and digging out the foundation trenches for male dorm 4. The debate about whether the slab should be lifted off the ground continues. Have left Tim and Judith to discuss with Joseph about what we should do about the levels and the use of topsoil in the foundation issues.

 I brought Dominic’s printed out photos to the site. IT WENT DOWN A TREAT. Think I’ll try and get the guys to print out some photos each time they go back and give it to the next team to bring out to show the guys. They were all really happy to see the photos on site. I put them up in polypockets on the wall for the guys to see. Need to get more pockets for more photos to go up.  Put up photos of the football teams to get the guys in the spirit for the game tonight!

 The game went well and everyone was in high spirits. It was really good for morale. In the end though, the orphanage team won….. With a close 3 goals to the orphanage and 2 to the medical centre….. but apparently one of the goals was not allowed from the orphanage side….. mmmmmm. The disallowed the goal and called it 2:2. But then according to Tim “this isn’t allowed in the FIFA rules”……. Mmmm….. I don’t really mind as long as everyone is happy.

 Was really funny cos Denis kept making impressions of matt throughout the football came….. saying things like ‘Good pass…… BUUUUUUT….. you didn’t score.

 After the football game, Judith and I took Rogers up to the orphanage site to show him what had to be done for the next day as we would not be around. By the time we got up there, it was really dark as it was about 7pm. I cycled up and Judith back up the hill to town. Then I cycled from town to home….. It was the scariest thing I’ve done in a long time! So many pot holes all over the place. I had to follow the Boda man’s swerves. Sooooo scary and will definitely never try to do it again!!!!!!

 Later Susan met up with us in the house and brought us over some traditional African food. She didn’t want Tim and Eve to go home without having tried some traditional African dishes…. So she brought some really tasty beans, beef stew, cassava and rice. Was well yummy.

Today Judith and I worked up at the orphanage together. We were helping out set out the rest of male dorm 4 and start on male dorm 3. There were big issues about whether we should take off the layer of top soil before we start digging and whether the top soil should be kept into separate piles for gardening use and the clayey /marram soil to be kept for backfill. It was not decided in the end as Joseph felt we should keep the topsoil and then put hardcore intop then the slab, but Judith was quite against it as she thought the vegetation would grow through and that the top layer of soil would be loose and bad for the slab.

 It was also decided that the depth of the trenches will only be 500mm deep rather than 650mm as the ground was very good at 500mm already and this would help to speed up work and save costs. Therefore, only 4 brick layers would be used in the footings rather than 5.

 At the end of the day, the helpers had dug the equivalent of 10,000 to 12,000ugx a day which was a lot more compared to their daily wage of 5,000ugx per day! So I wasn’t sure if they were normally working really slow, or if they were just motivated to work faster.

 We had a big debate with Joseph as to whether the ground slab should be lifted up 500mm also. Initially Eve’s designs allow for it to be lifted approx 100mm. Josephs arguments for it was that it would give a grander appeal and that it would be better to be lifted away from any water in the event of floods. We discussed this with the team in the evening over dinner and decided that we should raise it about 200mm as a compromise and that it should not increase costs too much to do this.

 We discussed this with Tim in the evening from a structural point of view and it was decided that they would check how much the topsoil could be compacted and if it could not be well compacted, then the topsoil should be removed before pouring the ground slab.

 Tim visited Steve Eperu’s village today and came back with a black hen. We left the hen in the hut to sleep. Later we ate curried fish, cabbage and some cassava and potatoes. Was really nice to have Helen back!

Today was Judith’s first day onsite and I showed her around the medical centre first. Think she was already a bit disorientated by it all and shocked by all the new people she would have to remember. There are quite a lot of people here with difficult names to remember I suppose.

 Eve stayed in the house to draw up some details for the medical centre and revise parts of the site plan for the orphanage. Was so glad to have them here. Meant that many things could be resolved very quickly without having to go and consult via the internet which takes about 10 years to load up and use.

 In the afternoon I went up to the orphanage site with Judith. There they had really cracked on with the work. Was really really good! The entrance was looked really good and the foundations were well underway. Only drawback was that it was sooooooo hot. Judith spent the afternoon trying to get used to the heat.

 For me, the work, heat and stress was still just really tiring. Already looking forward to the weekend.

 To motivate more of the diggers, after speaking with Joseph, the EFOD team had decided to pay the diggers per foot, at 400shillings a foot. This apparently was the going rate in town. It did make a huge difference though because they were a lot more motivated that afternoon.

 In the evening, I had Rogers, Susan and Susan’s Japanese friend over for dinner. I cooked them Maisie- Chinese style food, but only with vegetables….. There was egg fried rice, eggs with tomato, fried aubergine and salad. They all thought it tasted lovely…. But I just thought…. Mmmmm…. If my mammy had been here to eat it, she would have been very disappointed in me and my standards….. Next time I will try steamed fish and steamed chicken, though the chickens here are really old….. So will most probably taste bad.

 Susan brought over a cockerel for my hens tonight too. Felt a bit weird about it….. A bit almost like one man and two wives. A bit unfair really!

Today I stayed at the medical centre to help sort out the doors and windows. We still had issues with the timber and that we did not have enough for all the door frames. In the end, we managed to find someone else who had more teak. At this point, I had decided that I never really wanted to use teak again EVER!!!! It is really difficult to find, expensive, not dried and just a NIGHTMARE!

 Judith arrived late afternoon. Was sooooooo nice to see her. She had driven a long way that day with Joseph from Entebbe, so they were both really tired. I bought for her another mattress to use, some more chairs for the house and some food for the night. I had decided to cook a Thai green curry again….. tho this time, it really did just taste like vegetable curry. When I was in the market, I really thought there wasn’t much choice in what food was available. Things are very seasonal here and it really made me think that we are spoilt immensely with the variety of fruit and veg we can buy in the UK.

 Judith had brought with her an extra suitcase full of things for me with site gloves, deet, sunscreen, toothpaste, chocolate…. Mmmm…. etc….. soooooo sweet and lovely of her. Many of these things you can not buy here like the sunscreen or deet, and most other things are just hugely overpriced. The only cheap things here seem to be vegetables. Electrics are mega mega expensive.

This morning I went to Church. Tim and Eve stayed at home to rest. Think they were knackered from the 6 day week. When I went, many people asked where Tim and Eve were and I had to tell them all they were at home finishing off work.  I have to agree though that working 6 days a week gets extremely tiring!

 In the afternoon, I was invited to a church member’s house for lunch. His name was Noel. There he had also invited other guests. At his house, I really really noticed some HUGE cultural differences…… one of the main ones was that he was a strong Christian, yet had two wives….. To me, once again, this did not make sense.

 The food was lovely and they were extremely hospitable. I enjoyed the food a lot, as today was one of the first times I had eater Atappe. The atappe was nice, but a little sour. I would have loved it if it was sweet. They call it a bread, but is more like cooked dough where you can mould it with your fingers. They were showing me how you should mould it into a ball, then stick an indent into the top and use the dough as a small cup to scoop up soup from your bowl.

 Later that day, Eperu Steve took Tim and Eve up the rock. They seemed to really like it….. After they did that, I met them in the Landmark for dinner again!!!!!

For me, the timber nightmare continued as Robert the head carpenter and I went from shop to shop searching for more timber. There seemed to be a common response from people i.e. “The truck is being loaded up as we speak…. But they just need some money for fuel…… if you could help……” or “The truck is on its way, but is stuck up the mountain” or “They are waiting for nightime so that they do not have as many transport fees from the authorities”…. Though when they travel at night time their usual response is “They could not get here since it is rainy season and the roads are bad”….. with this, I kept bearing in mind that they were waiting till night-time to travel, though at night-time it rains a lot more than the daytime….. mmmmmmm…… didn’t make sense to me.

 I think the timber yards have a book full of excuses that they tell everyone. It’s driving me crazy…. I just wish they could be honest with me so that I can organise the workload better i.e. cut down on carpenters or give them different tasks to do.

 At the moment, at the medical centre, we are waiting for all the windows and door frames to be fitted, before we render inside and so it is frustrating when the timber is no where in Soroti as there is a large workforce and no work for them to do!

 At the orphanage, it was harder and harder to get the work force motivated…. Especially the trench diggers. Due to this, in the evening we discussed bringing a performance related pay scheme, but it was undecided how this would be rewarded.

 In the evening we were going to eat sweet potato chips and beans….. But the sweet potatoes were too hard to cut into, so Eve and Tim helped to cook some pasta. That evening we ended up eating pasta with kidney beans and plum tomatoes.

Joseph drove to Kampala today for a graduation ceremony and it was arranged that he would pick up one of the new engineer’s Judith on Sunday night.

 I continued to help out at the medical centre site and Tim and Eve at the orphanage to do more setting out.

 At the orphanage site, Tim and Eve were finding that a lot of the guys digging were low in morale and to finish digging all the admin block trenches took the guys 6 days which was mega mega slow. Many of the people on site were not really working also since it was really hot and it was difficult to get them all going in the heat. Many of the guys were arguing amongst themselves about work loads and who was doing what.

 At the medical centre site, Robert and I continued our saga of finding timbers for the door frames and windows. Was a complete nightmare being able to find timber pieces that were big enough to fit. The guys on site refused to allow timbers that were short to be pieced together and used, so we had to keep looking for long pieces which were at least 9feet long. NIGHTMARE!!!!! I decided that in future I will make sure everyone realises that doors should be standard 7ft designs and the same with windows. This is mainly because 7feet timbers are the norm here and then anything above that is difficult to find, expensive and not seasoned i.e. still green from the rainforest and most likely to warp and crack. NIGHTMARE!!!!!!! I spent a lot of the day in the sun, going from timber shop to timber shop sorting through their huge piles of timber to see if there was anything suitable. Managed to find about 8 pieces out of the 50 pieces we needed. GREAT!…… NOT!!!!

Today was the burial of the local pastor’s son. Due to this, the work on the medical centre had stopped. Denis and Akaikin kokas went to help dig the grave and prepare the area for the burial. Everyone was very sad about it all.

 At the orphanage site, they continued to work on setting out the male dorm 4 and the male latrine block. Work continued with the entrance wall

Today I went to see the doctor again since my stomach was still hurting. I went to have some further tests and they gave me some more tablets. Still don’t completely know what the problem is. I took the rest of the day off to sleep.

 The medical centre site was shut due to a death of one of the local pastor’s son. As a mark of respect, work was stopped.

 Tim and Eve continued on the orphanage site with the setting out of the main road and the male dorm 4. The masons Robert Abeyelu and Amos continued to work on the main entrance wall, building it up with a double skin of compressed earth blocks and block piers at 2.5m centres. Some of the other guys continued to dig the foundation trenches for the Admin block.

Tim and Eve started work on the orphanage site setting out the main pathway location and revising the admin block set outs. It was decided after some cost analysis, that it would be best to increase the depth of the admin block by three block dims.

 Other works included casting the wall’s ground slab and more compressed earth blocks made.

 I meanwhile stayed at the medical centre. There, they continued on the installing the ceiling joists and the masons continued to render the outside walls. Some of the workers took the day off due to a death of one of their village neighbours.

 In the evening I cooked Satay Vegetables with sweet potato and aubergines as Helen was still off. It tasted okay, though looked a lot like some sort of mush!

Today we went over to the medical centre first. Everyone was really happy to see the new people. Eve and Tim were still trying to get their heads around everything that had been done since they were last here. We decided it would be best to get going on the ceilings since the other timber for the windows and door frames had not arrived yet.

 Tim stayed to guide the others on the ceilings whilst Eve and I cycled up to the orphanage to meet Susan. At the orphanage, we discussed the use of the various spaces and helped to come up with some suitable ideas for the new kitchen/ eating space.

 At the medical centre, Tim discussed how we should move forward with the ceilings. It was decided that we’d still stick to the original plan and plaster some ceilings and leave some open. Some people were concerned about what it would look like. I was more concerned that there were many details in the medical centre that I did not have information for i.e. how the building is sealed from mosquitoes, how the water runs off the windows, how the guttering works, whether the plumbing should be on the inside or outside. Everything was causing me huge headache and this was only day 30.

 Robert the head carpenter went to Kumi in the end to source the timbers for the ceilings as everything in Soroti was really expensive.

 In the afternoon, we met up with Paul the Physical Planner at the site. He commented that he thought the admin block was a bit small and that he was concerned there was not enough space at the front between the admin block and the new perimeter wall. He also explained that he would have liked to have seen plans that would have allowed the dorm blocks to be built upwards for future development. I explained to him that this was not possible given the chosen material we were going to use for the buildings and Eve explained to him about the layouts and that we had planned enough space for future development of more blocks. He didn’t seem that happy about our answers, but accepted them.

 Helen was still sick with malaria today. In the evening I cooked a Thai green curry. Though it didn’t really taste like it. It did sort of look like a Thai green curry though!

Today we went to church altogether. I’m getting used to the way they worship now, but to the new people, it’s always a surprise. All the dancing and jumping is not what they are used to. It was again really funny because Joseph made Tim and Eve stand up in front of everyone and talk. They both went really really red.

 Following this, we went to visit Susan at the current orphanage. This time, all the orphans were at the school site, so it gave a good feel for how many children there would be at the new orphanage. We walked around looking at the classrooms, accommodation and general living spaces. It was quite a surprise to the others how tight the spaces were. Whilst we were there it was their lunchtime, so we got to see what sort of food was eaten and how it was prepared. There were some HUGE pots to cook the food. Some were so big they looked like a bath tub.

 After this, we walked around town and the market. Was really interesting going into the market to see what food was available…. seemed like there was a lot of tomatoes, avocado and cabbage, but not that many more vegetables. There were also a lot of soya beans and other beans/ lentils. So for dinner Eve cooked a tomato and lentil soup.

 When we got back to the house from town, somehow the other hen I had left had disappeared also. ARGHHHHH. Crazy chickens! I went around the neighbours to look for them….. Managed to find the chicken that disappeared in the beginning. She was walking around with another family of chickens. Was really sweet, though I decided to bring her back home. I clipped her wings so she wouldn’t fly away again. When I got back to my house, I found the other hen had appeared out of nowhere. Sooooo strange. I later clipped her wings too.

In the morning we continued installing the windows into the medical centre and at the orphanage the living fence was maintained whilst the strip foundations for the admin block and external wall continued to be dug.

 I waited for Tim and Eve to arrive from Kampala in the afternoon. Was not feeling great again, but better than yesterday. They stopped off at the orphanage site to take a look around with Rogers and I then went back to the house. Both Tim and Eve felt that the admin block seemed a little small and it was suggested that we should extend it back by another 3 bricks.

 To welcome them, we then went for dinner at the Landmark. Whoooo hooooo. Beginning to get very bored of the food at the Landmark.

This morning I only found one of the hens. Ohhps….. Not sure if one of them got eaten, flown away or mysteriously disappeared. Mmmmmm….

 Today I had the day alone. Felt soooooooo ill. Could barely get out of bed. Managed to force myself to go so that I could go and open up the orphanage site. I made it to the medical centre, and then got on a motorcycle boda to go up to the orphanage. It was soooooo much better going on a motorcycle boda cos it was faster and the same price…. Plus I didn’t have to feel bad when it had to go up the hill on a motorbike….. Usually on the bicycle bodas it takes ages and you can see the man cycling in front suffering.

 I went to check how things were going in the orphanage. They had started digging the foundations for the new entrance wall when Dominic was here, but I added in some additional piers for good measure at every 2.5m centres. Better safe than sorry I thought.

 The rest of the guys at the orphanage continued to dig the soak away pit and others on the admin block foundations.

 At the medical centre they carried on putting the windows together. I carried on feeling rough so I went home to try and sleep it off. Only managed to sleep for one hour, and then went back out to the orphanage.

Today was the last day for Dom and Fraser. Once again I was really sad to see them leave. Yet another pair has come and gone….. The time just flew by…. Crazy.

 This morning I still did not feel well, so I went to see a doctor. There he said that maybe I might have malaria. This then really worried me and I had to take a blood sample to check for malaria. It turned out I didn’t have it and he ended up giving me some other medication…. Though I still don’t really know what the other medication is for.

 In the afternoon I had my last dinner with Dom and Fraser in the Landmark. Another sad experience.

 The first six windows at the medical centre went in today. They looked nice, though there were still some tweaks required.

 Robert the head carpenter’s wife got me some hens today also. There were two of them with their legs tied together. Felt really sorry for them. At home I let them to roam around the garden.

 In the evening, Helen came to stay at the house so that I was not alone. She had been suffering from malaria, so was still very sick. So I made her rice congee at my house for dinner.

As we arrived on the site, Joseph asked us for our plans for the day and Fraser mentioned that they planned to have the leaving meal in the afternoon. Joseph’s next reaction was….. Well we should have got started ages ago!!! So he was really concerned that we did not have enough time to get a goat. From that, Fraser and Joseph went quickly to see if they could find some goat.

 They came back quite unsuccessful and there was a big debate at to whether the meal should be that day or the next. We ended up deciding to do it that day as it would have been too rushed the next day. Everyone wanted to eat pork (except a few), so pork was bought.

 I went into town to try and send some emails back to the team…. And once again the internet was A COMPLETE NIGHTMARE. It took me about 1 hour to send one email. It is sooooooo frustrating.

 On the sites, they really began to unwind because they all knew today was a food day and that they would be leaving early to go and have food. At the orphanage, they continued to dig the trenches and soak-away pit, whilst making more blocks. I had to double check with Lisa from the Good Earth Trust in Kampala what mix we should use for the curved blocks. She said that if the blocks were for the water tanks, it would be best to decrease the amount of marram by one wheelbarrow. This meant that they used 5 wheelbarrows of marram, 1 wheelbarrow of sand, 1 wheelbarrow of stone dust and 1 bag of cement.

 Later that afternoon we met with Simon the District Engineer to check what we were doing on site. He seemed really happy with what we were doing so far and had no structural objections. Though he did mention that he thought the Admin block seemed a little small.

 We had the leaving dinner. It was pork stew. Was once again really good! After that, the guys all went down to the football ground for their game of football. Steve somehow whipped out a bag full of football kit and all the medical centre side was dressed in orange. Was hilarious and really fun to watch!

 In the evening I felt really ill and just slept from 7:30pm till the morning.

 Helen was ill with Malaria, so couldn’t come to the house.