Date: 9 February 2008
Place: Masaiti Farming Institute
Activity: No class, but that means .... (bridges)
Building or working or doing something that requires fit muscles...
We were all building a bridge today.
We started by loading rocks into the tracter and trailler, but I still believe we loaded "boulders" into the trailler, and not rocks.
We then got to the place,unloaded the rocks, and started building the bridge.
But just so that you know. There already was a bridge, but with the rain that fallen in Zambia
the last 2 weeks, the bridge was flooded. So we were only repairing it. See photos for more detail.
So, we packed the boulders and rocks like a puzzle, and then we placed smallers rocks in between the bigger ones.
Then we split into 2 teams. One team went and got some gravel to overlay the rocks, and the rest of us had to cut grass.
But this was fun, because you have to use a "Slash"...
This is a long piece of metal which is sharp at one end and has a handle on the other end.
So we slashed and gashed, and we even went into the river to slash some bamboo.
So when all were united again, we swam a little in the river, but when we climbed out, we were so cold.
Then it started to rain as well. So we
were fully drenched.
We unloaded the gravel, took the tractor and "pasted" it fully in between the rocks.
Then we took the tools, hooked the trailler, and went to our house, only 5km away.
We sang the hole time, and got wet all over again with a cold breeze going over us.
At the end of the day, 12h00 the afternoon, we were tired like in the old days. It was truly fun.
We enjoyed every part of it. Some will be wondering at what time we started, so i'll share...
We started at 8 o clock. So we worked for 4 hours continually, and it was good!!!
Building bridges in Zambia is a good way to start the Global Challenge.
Written by Paul du Plessis
Inspired by a true story.
It really happened.
God bless.