Demolition Day 1

Yes, every guys dream....to break a bunch of stuff.

And every girls nightmare.......bugs.....

We needed to get a heads start on our Duplex out at Kasese because of the amount of work we need to do out there, and also since there is a medical group coming in at the beginning of October, we want to get as much done as we can before they get here.

So we chatted with Timeyo and told him that we are going out to Kasese and he should come along.

It was Friday morning (last Friday)....and speaking of that it has been a while since I have posted a blog, today is already Thursday.  I guess I will go into detail what has happened since last Friday also.

Back from the tangent


It was Friday morning (last Friday) and we were getting ready to leave Bowe when Timeyo told us that two girls would like to come along with us and help.  Well this sounded great.  We knew the two girls and they were very sweet and honest girls.  They are both teenagers and one of them we are especially close to, Linda.

So we packed up the car and went to their village and picked them up and then we were on our way.  We did not have much money so there were only certain tasks which we could accomplish while there.

Upon reaching Kasese and unpacking we found out that the generator was not working.....well great.  That cuts down on a few things which we could do.

But the plan was this, clean, sweep and mop everything inside the duplex to prepare for real work.

 

Grace, Araceli and Linda working on the kitchen

So we began around 9:30 and just worked away.  There was : Araceli, Timeyo, Grace, Linda and me.  So while working I saw that one of the closets was looking very very shabby and needed to come out.  As I got the crowbar out and started to work on it I discovered it was actually quite easy....why was this?

 

Some of the termite damage.  You can see though there is a sheet of wood at the top which they did not really touch

Well as it turns out the termites in Malawi are quite ferocious and aggressive.  They had eaten out a good majority of the wood.  So I finished pulling out all the broke wood and then worked on getting the base out.

Well as it turns out the cockroaches in Malawi are quite plentiful also.  As I pulled the base away there was scattering of feet everywhere and cockroaches ran in every direction.  It was only after they left the room to where the girls were that I heard a few loud exclamations!!!

After this I decided that all the wood furniture (1 more closet and the cabinets and sink) needed to be removed also.

 

What was left behind after the closet was removed, I guess you cannot see all the squashed cockroaches on the ground

The other closet was not so bad but once into the kitchen did the nightmare begin.

And Tiemyo owes me 1000 Kwacha now because he said there would be no bugs in the cabinets.

As I pulled the cabinets away I was left with what appeared to be a dirt floor and hundreds of cockroaches around them.  As it turns out, this dirt was the mounds of dropping left by the cockroaches.

 

Where the cabinets used to be and the dirt floor

The same with the kitchen sink......

So for the next hour we cleaned all of this up and I practiced my futbol skills, kicking the cockroaches out into the yard into a hen and her new chicks (they loved the cockroaches and ate them up and I love them now).  So we got all of that cleaned up.

 

The savior hen and her chicks

We finished up soon after and the plumber came out and we went around with him estimating things which we need.  Unfortunately because my dad did a good job of teaching me all of this stuff when I was growing up I get the great pleasure of replacing all the used, nasty pvc and plumbing fixtures in the complex......thanks dad.


We finished up that day and headed back, we stopped in Kasungu on the way and grabbed a mineral (coke) and something from the bakery.

Since then we have been spending time at Bowe and working on organizing everything. 

We are soon going to be buying appliances for the D

 We also found a litter of 6 puppies and asked them to hold onto one of them, we are going to take care of it and it will become the guard dog for the complex. 

 

And a litter of 2 kittens, although I have not seen them lately so maybe they got eaten.

Soon we will buy appliances for the Duplex but first we need to go and replace the walls, they used a poor mixture of cement and sand and because of that the wall surface is cracking.  So we have to go break it down and start over again.

 

Araceli and Linda chatting after work

Saturday we have to leave the country and cross the border because our visa's expire.  So we are still deciding on Tanzania or Zambia.