guy and i left late for kwathema – guy had to buy paint for his paired project. catherine and gareth went via b&r lawns to collect more grass.
after much leveling of the proposed grassy area by the anc youth league, we laid the instant lawn strips and once again began the torturous bucketing of water from mr cindy’s house. the area that the volunteers had cleared and leveled had opened up the beerhall site to the open, dusty tract of land to its east. the memory of the builidng seemed more interactive now, less prescriptive.
after not much mention of the anc youth league in my previous blogs, i must note that they have been outstandingly dedicated and enthusiastic about our ventures and we will be perpetually grateful for their involvement.
work on site was intense. our steel from macsteel had not arrived as promised and catherine was especially irate – she had assured mike stuart yesterday, that she would kill herself if the steel did not arrive on time! he guaranteed that it would. i followed up on the delivery and was confronted by an un-obliging and seemingly irritated mike on the end of the line. i eventually tracked-down phineus-the-driver who was lost in kwathema. i went to fetch him. finally the bulk of our flat bar had arrived, although the delivery as promised was not complete. fleetsteel had also arrived with our remaining c-sections and were instantly sent back to strydom park as the sizes of the members were incorrect. the laborer responsible for the error was fired.
we seemed to be having such bad-luck with the steel. i was longing for the day where we actually accomplished something substantial - where there was a noticeable development on site.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Step and What?...
Mood: Everybody for themselves and God for us all
Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...
Site: Entokozweni Primary
Site: Entokozweni Primary
Mission: Pour foundation and lay surface bed
Day Two... I could not believe it! The school had requested us to relocate the project back to its original position. This meant that we had lost an entire day of work-we knew that the project would not be fully realised by opening day. I guess that these are some of the lessons we are gonna have to learn concerning the building industry-that people have their own agendas at times, which is what we felt pertaining to some staff members at Ntokozweni Primary.
Nevertheless, work had to continue. So there were, right where we started. YES, pegging out AGAIN! We have now mastered the method of triangulation-it's unfortunate that we won't be tested on this in our exams at Wits which, mind you, are just around the corner. We managed to dig up the foundations required and poured the concrete in. We could only pour the surface bed in the following day since it was to dark to work anyway. Materials were delivered to site as we had requested.
"Diyabuya Ntate..."
Mood: Everybody for themselves and God for us all
Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...
Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...
Location: Chess Park
Mission: Complete Seating and Tiling
We continued to lay tiles on the chessboard and held them down with tile adhesive. Concurrently, we dug the holes for the seating. This exercised was directed by one of the volunteers, Gift. We placed bricks inside the tyres to prevent them from growing legs and walking and then cast concrete over the bricks. The concrete was covered with soil.
Group work....
What is interesting and at the same time challenging about group work is, role playing and what function each person plays.
In our group, I believe we have unconsciously taken the 'organic' approach where roles are molded as time goes on, the roles were not discusses and decided on but rather taken on by the players. I cannot say whether this is the right or wrong approach as I don't know what to compare it to.
As an idea for future projects, it could start with designing a team with a neutral fascillitator to guide the process.
For example all 5 of us had the desire to be in the chesspark group. That is a positive start, yet what I didn't and still dont know is why my collegues had picked this project.
We did not give eachother the space and the time to purely disscuss ourselves, ideas and desires.
Relationships begin with curiosity, I believe it is important to explore that aspect before taking on assumptions and going straight for the 'prize'.
Detailing desire.... Detailing our talents, our strengths and weaknesses and sharing them with eachother. ( In retrospect Sifiso has been a fantastic documentarian of our weaknesses.)
We are going through this process now and it is a bit ad hoc, our roles are not defined and because of that the group is delaminating.
Workshoping roles in a prior imaginary space, where changes and shifts can be made without drastic repercutions, could be an effective way to creating a team where players are confident and excited about what they are doing.
In our group, I believe we have unconsciously taken the 'organic' approach where roles are molded as time goes on, the roles were not discusses and decided on but rather taken on by the players. I cannot say whether this is the right or wrong approach as I don't know what to compare it to.
As an idea for future projects, it could start with designing a team with a neutral fascillitator to guide the process.
For example all 5 of us had the desire to be in the chesspark group. That is a positive start, yet what I didn't and still dont know is why my collegues had picked this project.
We did not give eachother the space and the time to purely disscuss ourselves, ideas and desires.
Relationships begin with curiosity, I believe it is important to explore that aspect before taking on assumptions and going straight for the 'prize'.
Detailing desire.... Detailing our talents, our strengths and weaknesses and sharing them with eachother. ( In retrospect Sifiso has been a fantastic documentarian of our weaknesses.)
We are going through this process now and it is a bit ad hoc, our roles are not defined and because of that the group is delaminating.
Workshoping roles in a prior imaginary space, where changes and shifts can be made without drastic repercutions, could be an effective way to creating a team where players are confident and excited about what they are doing.
Deliveries...
It was a cold day today, I borrowed a bakkie from a friend of mine and arrived at Union Tiles to pick up the concrete tiles for the chessboard.
With an unsavory gut feeling, I realized I had made the mistake of canceling the transport offered by Union Tiles for R236.84. We are running over budget and I wanted to save costs. A few Rands might have been saved yet time was lost. They are heavy, 1444kg and the bakkie could only take half. To load and unload the tiles is a mission, not to mention the driving, which made me feel like an elephant on rollerskates. We are planning to deliver the other half with Tom's bakkie tomorrow.
With an unsavory gut feeling, I realized I had made the mistake of canceling the transport offered by Union Tiles for R236.84. We are running over budget and I wanted to save costs. A few Rands might have been saved yet time was lost. They are heavy, 1444kg and the bakkie could only take half. To load and unload the tiles is a mission, not to mention the driving, which made me feel like an elephant on rollerskates. We are planning to deliver the other half with Tom's bakkie tomorrow.
Steel
Seeing as though yesterday was the day that everything was supposed to happen, and it didn’t, I assumed that today would be that day, and it wasn’t. We really are on track, it’s just that I’m excited to have a day which makes significant, marked changes to the structure. So Robyn and I arrived in KwaThema expecting to find a huge load of steel which should have been delivered yesterday evening. Well it wasn’t there. The weather is minutely better, with Mr. Cindi’s morning outlay of coffee was welcomed as usual.
I offloaded the plywood boards which Ahaka and I are using for our sign. Robyn and I positioned the remaining props. We sent our welder, January off to weld plates and our volunteers began to lift soil where new grass was going to be painted. Soon Catherine and Gareth arrived with a fresh stock of lawn and the basketball back board. The day continued with numerous phone calls to our two steel suppliers, with neither delivering. The phone calls got quite heated, with our need for urgency portrayed very accurately. Some steel arrived finally, but it was the wrong length, so the driver was sent back and was apparently fired. Well at the end of the day we finally had most of our steel.
Ahaka and I spent parts of the day trying to stick our boards up for our paired project on Stan’s container. He was very eager and helped us a lot. The glue was awful, so we used bolts instead.
The end of the day left us with some balustrade flat bar up, three fixed props, new lawn and the beginnings of a basketball court. We also received our two ‘no dumping signs’ today and about 8 refuse bins from the council. Khula has been in charge of painting the lines.
Far From Finished
Today Catherine and I left to KwaThema a little later than the rest of the group because we both had to present our Construction Seminars in the morning at Wits.
The plan for today is to go straight to Instant Trees Nursery for more planting materials and then on to B&R Lawns to collect another 30 strips of instant lawn. We managed to collect these materials in good time and it was now time to get back to the beerhall.
I met up with Lunga at my paired project site to see his progress- this guy and his 2 friends are amazing. I had anticipated that they would spend a full day cleaning the poles before their first coat of paint but when I arrived there they had completely finished scraping all the old paint off the poles- they were waiting around for me to arrive so I could give them the primer so they could start priming the steel! Lunga was adamant that he’d be finished with the first coat of primer by the end of the day, and when I arrived back to the site at the end of the day, he was! Fantastic!
My time at the beerhall was spent working and joking around with January. We managed to get most of the flat steel welded to the C-section uprights but we were still waiting on the remainder of our steel order to arrive. This wasn’t holding us up at this stage though because we still had enough steel to keep us busy for today.
I was really eager to get starting on installing the props that Guy organized for us. I really think they’re going to look great once they’re installed. Once we had established the positions for all the props I began drilling the holes into the concrete beams and surface bed so that I could fix them permanently in place. This was an exciting job and a nice change from working on the balustrade.
The plan for today is to go straight to Instant Trees Nursery for more planting materials and then on to B&R Lawns to collect another 30 strips of instant lawn. We managed to collect these materials in good time and it was now time to get back to the beerhall.
I met up with Lunga at my paired project site to see his progress- this guy and his 2 friends are amazing. I had anticipated that they would spend a full day cleaning the poles before their first coat of paint but when I arrived there they had completely finished scraping all the old paint off the poles- they were waiting around for me to arrive so I could give them the primer so they could start priming the steel! Lunga was adamant that he’d be finished with the first coat of primer by the end of the day, and when I arrived back to the site at the end of the day, he was! Fantastic!
My time at the beerhall was spent working and joking around with January. We managed to get most of the flat steel welded to the C-section uprights but we were still waiting on the remainder of our steel order to arrive. This wasn’t holding us up at this stage though because we still had enough steel to keep us busy for today.
I was really eager to get starting on installing the props that Guy organized for us. I really think they’re going to look great once they’re installed. Once we had established the positions for all the props I began drilling the holes into the concrete beams and surface bed so that I could fix them permanently in place. This was an exciting job and a nice change from working on the balustrade.
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