Buildings & Builders....

So, here is the building project when I arrived in February:


And here it is now:


Now I know what you're thinking, it doesnt look much different (apart from the longer grass - something I can not take any credit for). You're probably wondering what I've spent the last 6 months doing, maybe even thinking I've just been lazing around in the sunshine drinking coffee and working on my tan. But if you look inside, you can see we have actually made some progress:

February 2010:

August 2010:



And it's more than just a superficial lick of paint too, we now have proper rooms with ceilings and doors. Yesterday, DIY manual in hand, I started wiring up the lights. Should prove an interesting experience. Luckily, the building is not yet hooked up to the mains (I use the word mains in the loosest possible sense...4 solar panels on the roof) so there's absolutely no chance of me electrocuting myself. Based on past experience this is no bad thing.

Once completed the building will house a maternity unit, complete with delivery room and ward, a lab and an operating theatre. Some of you may be questioning how qualified I am to oversee the building of an operating room and let me tell you, you are in good company. I dont have a clue...

Work continues to progress and we're in good shape to be all done by the end of October, however, there has been one sad development in the last week. My right hand man, John Maruti, left for Kenya and won't be back until after I leave. It was the end of an educational, humbling, frustrating and mostly beautiful working relationship. Last Monday we said goodbye:


Fortunately, I think I'm going to be able to go and visit him on my way home, which helped to ease the pain...

John has almost certainly invested more effort than anyone in the building project, being involved right from the start, and he's certainly made my Sudanese experience a lot smoother. Although he routinely called me the boss (or 'Kevo-baba' when he was feeling affectionate), he taught me way more than I taught him and fairly early on I learned that when it came to how to do almost anything here, John was almost always right. Unfortunately, he had a habit of coming and telling me the right way after I'd done it wrong. That took a bit of getting used to.

I learned that almost every problem on the building site can be solved by a string, that getting angry isn't a very effective approach to management of Africans (One of the last things he said to me before he left, as we were about to deal with a tricky situation with our labourers was "Now Kevin, don't become annoyed"), how to have a disagreement with someone and then have both of you laughing by the end, how to kill a big snake (and a goat) and how to work without power tools, the African way ("You white people taught us this, and now you dont know"). He's a bit of a legend.

In a completely random aside, his eldest son he found crying in a bush as a baby so he took him in and called him Moses. His second son he obtained by more conventional means and named Kevin...I like to think that was in anticipation of working with me...

Here, the clock is ticking. I leave Doro two weeks on Friday and I'm not looking forward to it. It pains me to think how quickly the time has passed. I feel like I'm just getting the hang of things and now it's time to leave.

On a lighter note, tomorrow I celebrate my 28th birthday. Hopefully that doesnt mean it will be a bad day.

Until next time my friends...