Construction Begins!

Well, the time has come for me to stop laying in my hammock with a coconut drink and start to work!

The last four weeks have been such a blur. Bids, revisions, questions on bids, clarifications, finding materials, contract preparations, pay request forms, modification forms, and so on. It seems every time we moved forward to select a contractor and start construction, something went wrong and a process of meetings, emails, and discussion ensued before we could move forward again.

But that is all in the past and now it will be smooth sailing to the end of construction:). Well maybe it won't be that way. Actually I am guessing it will be much harder. To save money for the ministry, we are buying all of the materials. This is good but harder. It means talking with suppliers to get the best pricing, the right material, ( you will not believe the difference in 3/16" thick steel tubing! 3/16" is equal to 4.75 millimeters, but the ranges I found were 1.5 mm to 4 mm! That is a huge difference for the same product) scheduling delivery, and accounting all the purchases. It also means monitoring the inventory on a daily basis. This is a full time job. But there is still inspection, field engineering, weekly pay requests for the contractor, requesting clarifications from the other engineers at EMI and Forssman, and helping to answer questions on-site. Did I mention that when they start, there will be 28 workers? That should be a sight to see.

But hey, if the contractor can work Monday through Saturday, drive 6 hours home, preach on Sunday, and be back for work on Monday, I think I can push papers and work 50 ft from my home. The contractor, Philip Sicat, is not charging any of his time, only for his men. He considers this helping a ministry. He is an amazing guy. He speaks English pretty well, and there have only been some minor miscommunication. The biggest so far is the cultural issues. Relationships are so important in Filipino culture, that they will agree just to agree, even if they don't. So a yes doesn't always mean yes. It could mean maybe or even no. We were trained on this, but it is still hard to get used to. It means paying close attention to the indirect communication. That is making everything a lot harder than a normal project. But we are learning from each other and as his English expands, so does my Tagalog.

We will have a backhoe tomorrow and that is almost unheard of here in rural Sampaloc. When you can have 28 guys working for 350 pesos a day($7 per day or $196 for all 28) it is hard to get a backhoe for 2,000 pesos/hour ($20/hour) plus fuel. Can 28 laborers dig more than a backhoe in one day? We will find out, because only the front with an average 2.8 meter excavation is going to have the backhoe. The back of the property will be hand dug, still average of 1 meter or 3 feet deep, 3 feet wide, and 400 feet long.

Here are some pictures Brit uploaded. I will try and post more later.

This picture and the next are of the newly cleared area. Unfortunately they got a little over zealous and cut down some banana trees and a papaya tree that did not need to go. Otherwise it is amazing what can be done with machetes!

The next two pictures are some measurements that needed to be done before things get going tomorrow. The second one is of the contractor, Philip Sicat, and Josh.

A view from my level. Reinstalling the wall excavation line.

This was the dress for work on Saturday. It might be more substantial for the first real work day on Monday.

This is the temporary "Bank House". It is to house some of the workers that came from far away and also some of the materials and tools. They built it in one day. It is so much fun to see things happen so fast. It will come down as soon as the construction is over.

Delivery of the materials for the Bank House and tools.

The best for last - splicing into the power line at Rehoboth so that they can have power on the job site. It looks a little dangerous and deffinitly not US standards. That is a live 220 volt wire he is connecting to. But his partners don't seem to mind, they still pose for a picture. And besides, they aren't up there.

We will post more when we can. Thank you for the encouragement and prayers!

"Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain." -- Psalm 127:1a