Painting and proposed projects

Monday 19 March 2012 

Major water stains

Today was another painting day.  Well, the second part of the day was painting and the first part was trying to figure out how to seal some water damage to the ceiling before we wasted a lot of paint.  Since there is no product like Kilz’s available or anything like it, we tried using some of Valentine’s hairspray, that did not work; we tried WD40 and that only partially worked; we finally asked one of the yard boys to get some spray paint when he was running errands in town for Simon and low and behold, they actually had some spray paint at $11 a can.  It seems to work so we repainted Simon’s room ceiling and were able to seal a few spots where there was water stains.  The real test will come tomorrow in Sue’s ceiling as there is some major water stains.  We finished our four hours of painting by spraying her water spots with the can of paint and will give it a try tomorrow.  That will be our main task for Tuesday, finish getting the second coat on all the latex painted ceilings.  Francois is suppose to pick up 16 liters of oil based paint for the lounge and dining room ceilings and we will start working on those mid week, IF he is able to find the paint. 

Tuesday 20 March 2012 

Few more spots to cover on Sue's ceiling

In regards to using the hairspray as a sealer, it was a good bet, but it was a pump action bottle, thus water based, versus being a pressurized spray which is probably hydrocarbon based and would have sealed better.  The spray paint worked reasonably well, but still have a few spots with water stain burn through… we are doing the best we can with what we have to operate with, just like the locals.

The temps during the day are in the high 80’s or low 90’s but the humidity is high, or so it seems.  We don’t see many weather reports, occasionally at night, if the power is on and the TV is on.  We are 6 degrees south of the equator, so the temps remain fairly constant, but there is a rainy and a dry season.  We are supposed to be nearing the end of the rainy season, but they have not gotten nearly the normal amounts of rain, thus the water shortage.  The dry season is actually the “winter” months, with less rain and temps a few degrees cooler, both day and night.  The locals are worried that without the rains to fill the cisterns, it will be hard to find water towards the end of the dry season.  Always challenges.

Classroom across the street

Curious outside the classroom

In the afternoon the local District Superintendent collected us for a tour of some of the proposed projects in this district, all in the immediate vicinity of the compound.  We saw two churches, and a school complex that need relocating due to major erosion problems which will one of these days collapse several of the buildings, and another guest house project that the DS wants to do.  Rather than try to fix the large erosion problem and fight Mother Nature, the structures are in the downhill position, it will probably be less costly to move these operations to other available land in the Methodist area by the compound.  The school classrooms are very small, poorly ventilated and house about 65 children per classroom. 

Emergency room at Kananga II clinic

Proud new Mom at maternity clinic

We also saw the Kananga II Clinic, the local UMC clinic and maternity facility.  It is both the UMC and a national reference clinic in Kananga Province. There are no local NGO relationships at this time.  The clinic has many needs among them: roofing repair on all buildings, a water reservoir to provide an adequate supply of water, plumbing in the buildings, a consistent supply of essential drugs, medical supplies, equipment and materials, a generator, and an ambulance.  They are doing the best they can with what they have to work with, but it would seem that with a lot of planning and fund raising on our end, many improvements could be made for some reasonable costs.  We will be given more information about this by the District Superintendent. 

Outside the children come to see the strangers

Wednesday 21 March 2012

It's raining, it's pouring...

Simon & Jim keeping watch on the rain

All’s not lost.  We did get rain just after lunch and it rained really hard for almost an hour, but not nearly enough.  We collected three and a half 55 gallon drums of water, but the cistern only got a foot out of a capacity of 10 feet, in depth.  Just need more rain or they will be having a really hard time when the dry season starts in May. 

This afternoon Jim cleaned mildew off of the ceilings in the lounge and dining room in preparation for painting tomorrow.  It was a lot cooler after the long rain shower, but still very hot up on the scaffolding. Sue tried to get up on the scaffolding to give a hand at scrubbing the ceilings, but she just did not feel comfortable climbing up and then working above her head on an oil drum/plastic trunk tower.  It does take some practice to feel safe under those conditions and we decided that it was better for her to be on the ground handing up refreshed, Clorox/water rags so Jim could do the cleaning.  We completed the chore in about 90 minutes.  

It looks like Jacques is stuck in Lubumbashi until sometime early next week as the part(s) he needs for the plane have not come in yet.   We are just thankful that the broken plane adventure was not part of our travels out bush… we could still be sitting at the remote UMC Mission waiting for someone to come peddling up on a bike with the offending part… This is just a tough place to make any solid plans especially if it involves equipment with moving parts or that requires petrol or electricity to function properly.  It is just so hard to imagine daily life under these conditions, even when you are experiencing them on a daily basis. 

Thursday 22 March 2012 

Lounge (living room) ready for ceiling painting

Another day of painting.  We got both the lounge and the dining room ceilings done in oil based paints.  Oil based painting is a much bigger hassle as you have to clean everything with turpentine, which they do not have here, so we had to use kerosene which leaves more of a smell and a residue on your skin after you clean the brushes and roller.  Oh well, we are flexible.  

We will paint Simon’s room tomorrow while he is off at Kole, a remote Catholic Mission.  He tried to fly there two days ago with a plane loaded with tools and six bags of cement, but had to turn back due to a severe thunderstorm.  He was worried that he would not have enough fuel, but Jacques had some and authorized him to get what Simon needed for his trip.  He left early this morning as the weather started off way above minimums for Visual Flight Rules (VFR).  It was a good thing he left when he did as another thunder storm came into the area around noon, but did not produce any rain, just a lot of thunder and lightning. 

We have to do some patching of a lot of holes and cracks in his room, and the material they have here has to be mixed, applied, allowed to dry for 90 minutes and then sanded.  We’ll hit that part early and then will repaint the lounge ceiling while the compound dries.  The lounge ceiling did not come out as well as the dining room for some unknown reason, so we’ll repaint it while we wait to get into Simon’s room.   The room has not been painted in many years and was used by one of Jacques sons so there were a lot of holes and “stuff” on the wall.  It will be nice to get this room up to the standards of the other two bedrooms. 

Valentine said there will be a team coming in from Penn/Delaware UMC Conference in August so they will probably be the first to actually utilize the renovated guest house.  They are bringing some medical personnel.  Jacques will fly them out to several of the UMC Missions we visited.  We’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that we had a part in providing a decent guest house for visiting volunteer teams. 

Friday 23 March 2012

Ladder & the cistern, we'll use it in the afternoon

Sue painting in Simon's room

Got Simon’s room painted, but only after a false start trying to do the final coat on the lounge ceiling. We had set up for painting before breakfast.  While we were at breakfast, the masons arrived to work on the cistern at the guest house.  Francois got the extension ladder out of the lounge and gave it to the masons to allow them to get into the 10 foot deep hole.  They did not want to give it back so to avoid an international incident; we shifted to plan B and started painting Simon’s room just before lunch.  We were not at a good stopping point when lunch was called and even Valentine came to fetch us.  When she saw what we had accomplished and how good it looked, she did not fuss at us, but praised the great job we were doing.  She was amazed at what a coat of paint could do to the really raggedy room that once belonged to one of her three boys.  

Valentine recalled the day in 1999 when she was shot by a rebel who had invaded the compound and fired an AK-47 at her through one of the bedroom windows.  Luckily, the bullet ricocheted off one of the security bars, passed through her hand and embedded in the bedroom wall.  She ran to her son’s room, the one we are painting and pulled her son down under the bed at the same time screaming for help.  A neighbor came from behind her compound, armed, and the rebel fled.  The bullet hole through the glass, the nick in the security bar and the pot mark in the wall are still in my bedroom to this day. Daily there are reminders of some of the crisis these folks have lived through in the last 20-25 years. 

Saturday 24 March 2012 

We got the second coat of paint on the lounge ceiling today.  It looks great!  The lounge and dining room ceilings are now a glossy white instead of yellow and are a nice contrast to the walls that will be Broken White, a lighter shade of yellow. 

Floor clean-up

The floor in the lounge, dining room, hallway and vestibule are cream and red tiles.  The baseboards are red tile.  Cleaning up paint spills on the floor and baseboards is a challenge with kerosene – getting enough of it and the film it leaves on the floor.  We’re becoming adept at making do with what we can get. 

Bowed in cistern wall

Brick and mortar separating

More cistern wall building this morning.  The sides are getting up to ground level.  Mid morning Jim noticed a side wall bowing inward, as one of the mason’s helpers, at the mason’s instruction, piled earth back into the hole beside the wall, causing unacceptable pressure against the newly built wall.  In some spots on the inside of the cistern, the bricks and mortar were pulling apart.  Jim, with Valentine’s help, talked with the mason about possible cave in, the need to rebuild the wall and remove the dirt again until much later in the project.  After much talk, the wall was rebuilt. Disaster averted!