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Sunday, April 25, 1976, 6:00 pm - Day 89
I finally got a little excitement today. I was coming back from Biawala after checking the progress there. One of the roads on the way back is one of our feeder roads and it is in the progress of getting the final grading. I was coming down this road and then I saw before me the grader sitting across the road. Its front wheels were in one ditch and its back wheels were in the other and it was stuck exactly perpendicular to the road. Its four back wheels had each dug themselves into a hole by spinning to get out. The motor was stopped and it didn't have any battery. I saw at once that they had problems, and so I went into Daru to inform Charlie of the situation. He is the road engineer for that unit and is also one of us volunteers living at our house. I also grabbed a shovel and went back with him to the grader.
The driver of the grader was still in the cab and looked like he was asleep. He wouldn't respond to any questions or orders or anything. The others there weren't much help either but at least they were moving around and talking. It ended up that I had to dig out the wheels by myself while Charlie went off to look for the fitters (mechanics) so that they could start the engine. I dug the wheels out and also filled in the ditch on one side to make a diversion around the grader, and all the while the grader driver sat in the cab and pretended to sleep, and no one would agree to help dig. They kept talking about how the grader could get out by itself if it got started, even though I could see that the wheels had been spinning and dug themselves in while the motor was running, and so it wasn't going to be able to pull itself out without first digging out the wheels.
Finally the fitters came and put in batteries from their trucks (it takes two 12 volt ones). The road supervisor also showed up and he was able to get the grader driver to get out of the cab, but nobody could get anything more out of him and he just walked away. He can probably just keep on walking. The supervisor could drive the grader, and so with the engine started and the wheels dug out, he was able to get it up out of its predicament and the excitement was over. The grader driver will probably get fired and the other workers that just stood around will probably get suspended for a day or two. They all deserve what they get, too, because it seems that they can get a grader stuck but cannot lift a shovel to help unstick it.
Friday, April 30, 1976, 8:00 pm - Day 94
Time has moved on and things have been happening since I last wrote in here. This week I received letters from home after a drought of almost 3 weeks. I was beginning to wonder if someone was confiscating my mail for awhile there. I finished the book that I was reading. It was "The Fetterman Massacure", which I started when I was in Freetown and just finished last night. I remember seeing it on TV before. It is about a bunch of soldiers that leave the fort to rescue the wood wagon, which was being attacked by Indians. They ride out and over the first ridge, where they are met by 2000 Indians waiting for them. My next book is "Catch 22", which I just started today.
Work at Biawala has had its little problems this week, but I think that they are all worked out now. I have 2 culvert crews now, and my new culvert supervisor was upset that he had to finish up for my other supervisor's work instead of being able to start his own. It took a few days but I think that he is now willing to work at finishing up what has already been started and then left by the other crew.
We just had our monthly meeting this morning in Bo. To my surprise, our boss, Les Galagher, didn't seem to get upset like usual and I think the meeting did more good than usual. We talked about the road work and its problems and didn't get bogged down in money matters like usually happens.
Monday, May 3, 1976, 6:00 pm - Day 97
Saturday I ended up being in charge of the fuel depot for every other week. I had the keys because the Sierra Leoneon in charge was spending the day in Bo and so I brought them over to the fuel depot so that all of the machines could get gas. By just sitting there and looking through all of the record books I was able to pretty much figure out how the system worked. Finally, Dave Woverton (a VSO engineer) who was in charge of the fuel depot, showed up and asked me if I wanted the job. I said that I wouldn't mind helping and so I ended up taking over for every other week. The job comprises mostly of checking over the paperwork that is generated and also calling the Bo office to order more gas. We use about 40 gallons of gasoline per day and about 350 gallons of deisel. The reason that we use so much deisel is that all of the machines use it and some of them really gobble it up.
There was a party Saturday night at a volunteer's house in Segbwema. I got there at 8:00 and left at 2:00. Dinner was included and the highlights were potato salad (with pickles) and peanut butter cookies. Pickles cannot be gotten in Sierra leone and cookies mean that they had to have an oven, which is also hard to come by. The last few hours were filled by everyone sitting around listening to this guy and his guitar. Some people have guitars but most don't know how to really play them, but he did. It was a pleasure to get some live entertainment again.
All Sunday and the first half of today I spent in Biawala with two of my carpenters and 3 communal laborers. Together we constructed the formwork for a headwall of a double 4 foot culvert. The thing is mighty impressive. It is 7 feet tall and 11 feet wide with 10 foot wingwalls sticking out even further on the sides. I left all of the sawing and hammering to my carpenters because they were able to work much faster than I could (if you can believe that). In sawing through plywood they would hold the saw what I would consider backward (teeth facing away from them) but were still able to really move it through the wood. Also, they were always putting oil on their saws and they made it a point of getting the nail tips wet with their mouth before they would hammer them in.
Today I think I got my new supervisor a little mad at me because I sort of inferred that I thought he was working too slow. He has now spent almost two weeks working on this one culvert fixing / bank stabilization spot and it looks like it will take him another week to finish. I would have estimated that it would have taken about one week to complete and now its looking more like three. One point that I think is influencing my thought here is that my supervisor seems to be the type that just sits back and tells his workmen what to do, but doesn't lift a shovel or trowel or hammer to show them what to do.
Also, I don't like the way that the design is coming out. I think that he could have used much less stone pitching to achieve a stable slope. At this point it becomes partly my fault for not being there on site for the whole time, but it is also partly his because he doesn't quite follow through with the design that I do tell him to use. Alot of the trouble then is that he is doing alot of work but accomplishing very little in the way of slope stabilization. I guess that the only way to fix the situation is for me to spend some time with him and actually show him how I would like the work done and not just tell him and then hope that he gets it right.
My shits have been solid and regular for the past few days, which might not sound like much, but it is probably the first time in about 2 months that it has been that way. For all of that time it has usually been coming out in liquid form about 5 times a day for a few days and then dry up completely for a few more.
My appetite has always been good lately and I have been following my cravings as much as possible. In Bo last Friday I had ice cream and cake, which I had been looking forward to for the week before. The ice cream was good and so was the cake, but I started feeling sick before I got through because it was just too much. Saturday started my good day. For breakfast I had a 4-egg cheese omelet. I was starting to feel full towards the end of it, but I finished and then started in on a bowl of cold cereal, which I picked up in Bo and was looking forward to. By the time I was finished I had gone through 4 of those one-serving boxes and could have gone through more except that I ran out of milk and also because I wanted to save the rest for the next day.
This morning's breakfast I also topped off with two boxes of cereal and have two more left to look forward to tomorrow. The date on the cereal was November 1975, so it was a little old and therefore a little stale. I suspect that the stores buy them from the other countries when they have to be taken off of the shelf there. Even though a little stale, I thought that they tasted great, and am now seriously thinking about making the trip to Kenema on Wednesday specifically to stock up on cold cereal so that I could have some every morning. It seems to be that a little cold cereal for breakfast is what I need to start my day off right. Also, it makes the powdered milk taste better.
We had rice for dinner tonight but I wasn't looking forward to it. Then I got the idea of taking the plain rice and putting butter, sugar, and cinamin on it. That idea was enough to change my whole attitude towards dinner, and so I went ahead a piled my plate high with rice and then smothered it with the butter, etc. I then promptly ate it all up and was not yet full. It was really a change from rice with potato leaf and hot pepper. With it I only take a little and eat less, and it kills my appetite for eating anything more. They say I'll learn to love it, but it has been 3 months now and, if anything, I like it less than when I first came. I think that now I know what to expect and so I lose my appetite before I even take a bite, while when I first came I was willing to try because they said that I would soon grow to like it. I think I have instead grown to hate it.
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