Friday, April 14, 2017
We came to Makeni for the weekend. We love it here. But Don gets so frustrated. He
works almost the entire time we are here doing handyman work on a duplex less than 9
months old. The Africans do not know how to do plumbing or electrical work. When
they built this duplex they put in a hand-dug well. They went so far down until they hit
rock and called it good. Needless to say, it is not very deep and the well is dry and has
been since the end of December. We installed two Milla tanks one for each side of the
duplex (one is 5,000 liters and the other is a 3,000 liter tank). We have been having
water brought in. It was decided that this compound needs one more additional tank.
So they put in another 5,000 liter tank. This one sits on the ground and the water is
pumped up to the two in the air. For some unknown reason, when they put the
basement (a concrete platform) in for the tank to sit on they put it smack in the middle
of the driveway. They did a very bad job. They built the outside of the platform out of
concrete and filled the center with rocks and then put a 1" slab of concrete on the top
with no supporting steel in it. Then they put the tank on the platform and filled it with
5,000 liters of water. The weight of the water crushed the 1" slab. Not only that, but
whoever did the plumbing did a crappy job. It leaked so bad, all 5,000 liters drained
out. Keep in mind, we are in the dry season and it has not rained since the beginnning
of December. The rivers are trickles and the streams are dry. People are suffering for
water and we had this huge waste. Don will spend the week end fixing this mess. He is
not happy.