May 19th 2009

Today I showcased how little I know about construction management. The requested twenty-five men and women showed up for work this morning. Though I had arranged for a woman to cook breakfast for them, it had not occurred to me that I would still have to provide the food for the women to cook. It was too late by then. We had to get started.

One group of men rode with the tractor to fetch sand from the river bed. The rest stayed at the clinic with me. We began by measuring the precise locations of the corners of the building, being very diligent to insure that the corners were perfectly square. This task is important, but can only be performed by two people at one time. So, fifteen men sat in the shade for the first hour while Pok and I placed stakes on the corners of all the rooms.

There was plenty of work to go around once the crew began digging the foundation trenches. The ground under each wall must be excavated before we can begin work on the foundation.

At lunch time, having prepared no meal as promised, I simply handed out one cedi to each worker who had contributed. They were happy to receive it (most people eat for less than one cedi per day), but this is a costly way to go and I know most of them will save the money for their families instead of actually using it for lunch. In effect, this is just giving them a pitiful wage without making them any stronger for the work. We still made it clear that the money was meant to cover the cost of a meal.

When the tractor returned, the molders were able to begin making blocks for the foundation. Blocks in this area are notorious for their poor quality. Any block that contains cement is considered usable in a region where mud buildings are the norm. To cut costs, builders will water down their mixture with sand so much that the blocks barely hold together. Many of them don’t.

Pok insisted that blocks built to government standard, that’s thirty to a bag of cement, need ten days to cure. I instructed the molders to make our blocks at twenty to a bag (a richer mix). This should give the building more strength and allow us to build on them after four days.

A typical Ghanaian block next to ours

Part of the reason I arrived early was to ensure the quality of the materials going into the building. One of the suggestions of the group was to have the blocks ready for us when we arrived on site. However, my fear was that the cement may be watered down to save materials and the structure would not be as sound as our team planned. The only way I can insure the price and quality of the materials is to do as much as I can myself.

-John Yatsko