Mornings start early in Bansang; the cockerel that roosts
right outside my bedroom window makes sure of that! Although to be fair, I’m
usually lying awake long before he starts his early show at around 5am. After a
long, hot, sticky night, It’s a joy to stand under the tepid water of the
shower and wash away the last vestiges of sleep… or at least it is when we have
water, which was not to be the case this today! So this morning I simply
reversed the process and breakfasted on muslie and bananas, washed down with a
good cup of builders tea, by which time I heard the first trickles of water
coming through and filling the cistern. No point in getting upset over it after
all as Robert from Diamedia would proclaim, TIA… this is Africa and thing
happen somewhat differently to back home.
I needed another early start anyway as I’m off to the Mite
house on bat watch before the first glimmer of dawn creeps through the starry
night, and it really is beautiful in the cool, fresh air of the dawn. Yesterday
saw me over at the hospital just before 7am to see what, if anything, Dembo had
been doing in my absence. Hmm! Not a lot is the answer to that one; quelle
surprise! Certainly the floor tiles had been laid in the corridor outside the
new theaters, and very nicely too. Amazingly there was not too much sign of
grout, or white cement, left on the surface. Unfortunately I can’t say the same
for the mosquito screens that have been put up over the new aluminum framed
windows! Not only do they look awful, they make it impossible to clean the
windows on the outside, as instead of being made removable, they have been
fixed with huge screws straight into the concrete blocks. Oh well, I guess they
can just hose them down from the outside through the mesh. Once more I mutter TIA
!
Well, no bats were spotted this morning so just about to go
over and try to see them coming out. Dusk is about 7pm so if I arrive just
after 6pm hopefully I may well catch them leaving the roof space.
It’s been quite a good day today, with Morro and his team
straight into work on the drains, which have to be fixed at the top end of the
ward before we can start to demolish the toilets and showers at the bottom
end…. Three manholes have already been constructed with a forth about to be
excavated in the morning. More work on the drains follows to replace pipework
damaged by the road construction work a couple of years ago. By tomorrow night
I am hoping that all the drains will be fully functioning right down to the
area of the subsidence.
Meanwhile the maintenance team have been creating havoc in
Anita’s house where Tanya and I are residing, by tearing down the ceiling in the
lounge area and what a right old mess they made, leaving most of it for me to
sort out. And that’s not the worst of it as they are back in the morning with
three more areas to pull down before they start replacing it all. As I might
have guessed the two days will certainly be at least a week at the rate they
work. It’s quite interesting to contrast them with Morro’s few boys…. I know
who I would put my money on at the moment !
No comments:
Post a Comment