Rebar Cage in Place

Good Evening from Shirati!

   Work continued into day four and I am excited to inform you that ALL of the rebar has been placed for the ring beam! While we will still have some minor adjustments to be made to the position of the cage, work is progressing ahead of schedule. The hope is to begin pouring zege on Saturday, assuming that there are no major complications. Sakai now has the formwork in place around over half of the building, and the hope is to have the remaining formwork in place by the end of the day tomorrow. Tomorrow will not see any ridiculously fast paced progress, as we will be placing the bolts for the truss, and adjusting the rebar cage and formwork. So we will be checking the elevations and clearances multiple times so come Saturday we can pour zege with confidence that everything is in place where it should be.

   This afternoon right before lunch, I decided to take a little trek up the hill over looking the school. I was able to take some amazing pictures of the school, as well as a few panoramas of Burere, which I will post once I am able to compile them together.

   The crew from Burere worked as hard as ever, allowing us to stay ahead of schedule. Even Obama, our work site clown, has been able to be helpful the past few days. He does this all while talking, despite the fact that we have no idea what he is yapping about. The crew has worked hard for the past four days, and they will get a lighter day tomorrow since the rebar is already in place.

   On another note, I believe a good thoughts should be sent Richard's way as he broke his trusty, loyal hammer yesterday while trying to split a pre-cut 4x4 into two 2x4s. He somewhat fixed the hammer by chiseling the wooden handle and sliding the head back on, as well as adding two pieces of #3 rebar and duct tape (what can duct tape not fix?) to it as well. But the hammer will never be what it once was, will be forced into early retirement, and it will be missed.