Day 1

March 31st, 2008

Day 1

It has begun!!! At approximately 9am on Monday morning a loud knocking could be heard coming from the far corner of the hospital grounds. I went to investigate and found that the hired contractor for the clinic building had begun knocking holes in the ground with a large steel spike and a very large rock.

The corners of the clinic space were marked and blue lines were attached to wood sticks to mark the height of the new floor and foundation. This process took most the day and yielded various holes in the existing concrete and a few well positioned markers.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start! Yipee!!!

Day 2

Javier, the head maintanence guy, had come over to inspect the work of the contractor’s men on the clinic site.

He backed up his big truck and ran over the well positioned wooden sticks.

“Half a day’s work and you run over it!” yelled one of the contractor men.

I found it amusing that the head maintanence man was the one wreaking havoc on the work site. I guess that’s the beauty of using sticks and stones, there’s always more around.

Day 3

The edge of the sidewalk behind the cafeteria is disappearing. The men are cutting it with a ceramic saw to make room for the new clinic wall. It appears that what they said was a three foot block of cement under the sidewalk is really only about six inches. Clay colored dirt is now apparent where the sidewalk has been cut. They will place a metal frame in the cement as a bridge over the dirt to support the wall.

“This will be strong enough to support a wall?”, I asked.
“Claro”. “Of course”, was the answer.

Javier comes up to me and asks if it is OK to cut the roof of the cafeteria. Apparently the new roof of the clinic will cross over onto the cafeteria roof and there is not room. Javier’s next question was whether or not I was going to change the location of the toilet in the clinic. They are going to be putting the plumbing in before the foundation is laid and they need to know the exact location of the toilet to proceed.

Woah! Now things are moving a little too fast! Where is Arthur the administrator for these types of questions? Well he’s in the states it turns out.

I hope he gets back quick before they cut the roof.