Saturday, April 14, 2007
Swingy Thingy
When we were in Canada Abby was in Gymnastics every Saturday and one of her favorite things to do was to spend time on the bars. She loved to swing, flip and simply dangle from the wooden uneven bars. So one of the things that we promised her was that I would put some kind of bar up for her in the yard in Africa. Well here we are settling in to our new place and the time came for the bar to be put up. As you can imagine from my experiences I would have to go to the garage and talk to my friends there to procure the necessary materials and probably get some help. I suppose I could leave it there and let you use your imagination to figure out the outcome, but that would be no fun for me so I will force you to see my experience through my eyes. I suggest, however that you fill in the blanks with your own view of things so that you don’t get bored.
Nik and I told Abby that I would put the bar together for her in the next day or two and she was positively squealing with joy. She promptly sat at the couch with a marker and a piece of paper and started to draw. Nik and I thought that she was just doodling but after about 20 minutes she called me over, “Dad, can you please take a look at this.” “sure!” I replied, thinking I would be looking at some picture of an animal or human. She sat me down beside her and showed me her page. There were 5 or 6 drawings with only 2 that were not crossed out. Abby, quite seriously, said, “OK Dad, this is what I think the bar should look like.” I was pretty impressed with her rendition, as it was exactly what I had in mind. Two solid posts with a meter of pipe in between to dangle from; simple in design, functional in practice, and most of all easy to build. So the next day after I finished lunch, I headed up to the garage to git ‘er done!
I walked my, now well-worn, path from the house to the garage and looked around for Philipo the foreman. He was not easy to find as he was seemingly hiding in the electronics’ office. When I approached it was clear the he was in a meeting with one of the electricians. Possibly discussing the ladder safety or the concept or parallel lines. Anyway, they stopped talking to see what I was after. I tried to explain what I wanted to build and after a few minutes of no progress I pulled out my notebook and drew it. Philipo gave the look of a light being flicked on with too much voltage and said, “Yes, take what you need!!” and with a sweep of his hand over all the materials in the garage yard was off. I was left to my own devices to find the needed supplies and went to explore. I found the timbers I needed and a rack of pipe, but it was all locked up. Poor Alphonse was in for another go ‘round with me to sort out my business.
I went on the hunt for Alphonse and found him as usual in a shady spot, this time under the shed that houses the backhoe and tractors. He was in a heated discussion with some of the other workers but was eager to help me out. We went to find the wood and I thought I would also need a sledgehammer, so I asked him what the word for hammer is. Nyundo is hammer he told me and as I needed a large one and I knew the word for large was kubwa I said, “Need nyundo kubwa.
I repeated nyundo kubwa a few times and then we walked on looking for the sledge. Then Alphonse asked someone else to help me as he figured it must be in the Welding area. “This man is a specialist!” he said, “He will help you.” We looked around the welding area with no luck in finding the nyundo kubwa so I was sent, once again to find Alphonse. He noticed my confusion and as he approached I said, with arms outstretched in wonder, “nyundo kuma.” – notice the difference – Alphonse could not contain himself and uncharacteristically burst into a fit of laughter with his hands covering his mouth. Once he was, once again, composed he stooped forward and came close to me shaking his head and conspicuously shaking a finger in front of his mouth. Then with hushed voice repeated the correct pronunciation, “nyundo kubwa...kubwa…kubwa. Not,” even quieter now, “kuma, OK?” “Ok?!?” I replied. He looked at me with an inquisitive look and said, “Do you know what you said.” I did not. He laughed a little again and whispered, “Kuma is vaginal,” I had asked him for a ‘vaginal hammer’. I must have looked very embarrassed but Alphonse chuckled and said, “no problem, no problem.” and we walked on to find the big hammer laughing quietly at our private joke.
We eventually found the hammer in a small closet in the back of the welding shop that had not much else in it but a few buckets and I’m sure a few spiders. Having found the first piece of the puzzle I was directed to the wood locker to sort out the timber situation. I looked through the fence and found a huge pile of African hard wood approximately 2 – 3 inches by 6 – 7 inches. It was rough cut but looked perfect for my purposes. It took about ten minutes to locate the man with the key to the wood locker. We eventually found him sleeping in the back of one of the many Land Cruisers and woke him. He was happy to help and showed no signs of being rudely woken. Alphonse accompanied me into the locker and we found a couple of good pieces. I wasn’t very picky and figured anything that was 8 feet long would do. Alphonse however has an eye for detail and wouldn’t let me choose a piece that had the slightest curve in it. I did not want to offend him so I accepted the 2 pieces he selected and off we went.
I was going to take them straight home but the hard wood was very heavy so Alphonse grabbed the second one and away we went. As I walked toward the gate, Alphonse detoured into the wood shop, I was curious as to why and was compelled to follow. Alphonse was jabbering away to the boys in the shop and they quickly fired up the rough planner and started to take the crap off the first piece of wood. I was sort of astounded that they were going to this trouble for a child’s toy but was happy that I would not have to do it myself after it was erected. I lent a hand on the second piece as one of the guys took the first piece to a second, finer, planner and ran it through exposing a beautiful grain pattern.
We next lopped off the cracked ends of the boards to give them an equal length and then went next door to the table saws to give each a good point for pounding them into the ground. The table saw “specialist” was very good at his job though I found his lack of closed toe shoes to be a concern for me. I kept thinking, ‘please don’t loose a toe while working on this’. Thankfully his toes were intact and there were nice points of both boards. Now it was time to find the pipe.
I walked to the pipe locker and was followed by a couple of guys who Alphonse had selected to assist me. Of course it was locked but with a large gap between the fencing and the wooden top of the locker. I selected a 3 – 4 foot piece of, what I would call, 1 inch pipe that had a cap welded at one end and a small bend at the other. It looked like scrap to me and was long enough for my purposes, but had to argue with the two guys before I could use it because they wanted me to take a full length of new pipe and cut it down. I was convinced that if the scrap fit the purpose then it was fine. Since we shared few common words in each other’s language they couldn’t really argue and I got my way.
Next we had to find the “specialist” in the area of cutting pipe and drilling holes. This guy was also the welding “specialist” and was currently engaged in welding a patch into the floorboard of a Land Cruiser ambulance. I watched (I didn’t look directly into the spark) and he seemed to be doing a good job though his idea of a welding helmet was his eyelids. That is not to say the actual welding helmet wasn’t beside him on the floor of the passenger side. It reminded me of those cyclists is Canada that ride their bikes through the UVic campus with their helmet hanging from the handlebars. Each time he would finish a small section of welding he would dip his rag into a teakettle – like the one your Grandma had displayed prominently in her china cabinet – and would cool the weld with the water inside. When he was finished I tried to ask him about not wearing the welding helmet. He replied through pantomime by closing his eyes very tight. I next asked with broken Swahili if his eyes hurt at night. I think he said something like from time to time. So I explained what I had been told about putting used, moist teabags on your eyes to ease the pain. He said, “Asante Sana (thank you very much) I have Soda,” as he produced a half bottle of Pepsi from the floor of the Cruiser and took a long sip. I gave up.
Side Bar about tea bags on the eyes.
Does anyone know if this really works? I think this may be something that veteran welders tell the new guy in the hope that he/she will try it and come to work the next day with eyelids stained to the colour of tea. Well… let me know what you think.
So where was I…Oh ya I see it just up there…
We walked over to the drill press, and when I say drill press I know that some of you are thinking of that little number that you have in your garage or workshop, this drill press however, is the mother of all drill presses. It probably weighs just over a couple of tons. The pole that the hydraulic lift moves the unit up and down on has a 12-inch diameter and rises to a height of about 7 feet. The one-inch chuck will accept bit of at least 6 inches. Adam, the welding specialist took the pipe and while my back was turned for a second chopped the cap off the one end and returned to find out what size of bit we would need for the wood. We went into the garage stores and found a very clean set of calipers, Adam measured the pipe at 35mm and we set off to find the correct bit. We quickly located a huge bucket of bits ranging in size from 1 – 4 inches and Adam’s deft hand found the right bit with his first stab into the bucket. So now with the correct bit in hand it was off to the drill press to get some work done.
We secured the bit with a swift smack of a smaller bit and opened the vise to the right size. This operation took another hard smack with the spare bit and we then got “help” from another apparent specialist; this one, a vise specialist. He turned the screw to tighten the vise until it was about a half an inch from being snug and said, “OK good.” I laughed to myself and angled the board so that it was actually snug as Adam set the drill in the center over our mark. The bit was so dull that it took about a minute and a half to get through the wood. I removed it right away to the amazement of the vise “specialist” and we set the next piece in place. Our vise man was keen to tighten the vise this time and smacked it repeatedly with a heavy piece of steel until it was closer to a quarter inch from snug and gave a big smile at his accomplishment. I was more pleased and Adam set the drill in place once more and started our hole. This time he made it most of the way through in about 2 minutes and stopped short of complete to turn the board over. I was a bit surprised as this would mean more vise work but we just flipped it and hit it with the drill quickly and we were off again. We carried our materials to the backyard of the house and Adam set off to find digging implements.
He returned with a pickax and a Tanzanian shovel – a six-foot length of 2 inch galvanized pipe with an 8 inch by 3 inch bent spike at the bottom. Adam and I measured the distance between the posts and, me with the pick and him with the Tanzanian shovel, began to dig. We went down a foot or so and set our posts, took some measurements and dug another 6 inches or so. We again set the posts and began to fit the pipe into each board. I went from one side to the other hitting each side with the nyundo kubwa until we had it just right. It was then that Alphonse appeared with a couple of others bearing a gift.
Alphonse must have seen the guys cutting the grass for 3 days, as he brought me my own golf club grass cutter and offered cement to finish the job. At first I declined but after one of the grass cutting guys helped us set the posts I realized that to make a very secure toy, cement was going to have to go in the holes. So off I went with Alphonse, once again, to find some cement. I should have known by now that I could not do this on my own; that is not to say I am not capable of mixing and pouring cement its just that it doesn’t work that way here. So Alphonse introduced me to the “cement boss” and sent us to find the cement. I shouted back to Alphonse, “Is he the cement specialist?” Alphonse and his small crew laughed out loud and Alphonse shouted back, “Ndio, Ndio!!” (Yes, yes)
I followed Mr. Cement through and around the different hospital buildings, past the medical ward with its overflowing rooms, past Physiotherapy and a few other wards that I didn’t recognize. We came around a building to a small patch of earth where two young women were working with cement on a project that I really couldn’t tell you what it was. They stopped work immediately and greeted me with familiar Swahili and I responded. They quickly started to let fly with more that I did not understand and when I tried to let them know that I only knew a little Swahili they laughed at me – without pointing though. They then started in with more and more Swahili and I felt like a women walking past a Canadian construction site. I smiled at the women as we left and they returned to their work. I again took up my position as the follower and we made our way back through the hospital buildings and emerged close to our house. I kept following and was led directly to our backyard. I am still baffled that he knew where we lived but this seems to be common knowledge among those at the hospital as we are in Canada house…or so it seems.
I retrieved a bucket of water from the rainwater tank and we mixed up the cement, set the posts and began our pour. It turned out that we needed two wheelbarrows full and the cement boss took off and returned quickly with a second load. Once we had the cement in, I used the trowel to make it smooth and the workers took off with my thanks. Adam stayed behind to help me take the tools back to the garage.
I came back and showed the girls and during the rest of the day all our friends as well. In all, I had help from 12 guys. I am happy to have the bar up and Abby’s initials in the cement. After a few days of sprinkling water on the cement morning and night Abby will be swinging and dangling to her heart’s content.
Nik and I told Abby that I would put the bar together for her in the next day or two and she was positively squealing with joy. She promptly sat at the couch with a marker and a piece of paper and started to draw. Nik and I thought that she was just doodling but after about 20 minutes she called me over, “Dad, can you please take a look at this.” “sure!” I replied, thinking I would be looking at some picture of an animal or human. She sat me down beside her and showed me her page. There were 5 or 6 drawings with only 2 that were not crossed out. Abby, quite seriously, said, “OK Dad, this is what I think the bar should look like.” I was pretty impressed with her rendition, as it was exactly what I had in mind. Two solid posts with a meter of pipe in between to dangle from; simple in design, functional in practice, and most of all easy to build. So the next day after I finished lunch, I headed up to the garage to git ‘er done!
I walked my, now well-worn, path from the house to the garage and looked around for Philipo the foreman. He was not easy to find as he was seemingly hiding in the electronics’ office. When I approached it was clear the he was in a meeting with one of the electricians. Possibly discussing the ladder safety or the concept or parallel lines. Anyway, they stopped talking to see what I was after. I tried to explain what I wanted to build and after a few minutes of no progress I pulled out my notebook and drew it. Philipo gave the look of a light being flicked on with too much voltage and said, “Yes, take what you need!!” and with a sweep of his hand over all the materials in the garage yard was off. I was left to my own devices to find the needed supplies and went to explore. I found the timbers I needed and a rack of pipe, but it was all locked up. Poor Alphonse was in for another go ‘round with me to sort out my business.
I went on the hunt for Alphonse and found him as usual in a shady spot, this time under the shed that houses the backhoe and tractors. He was in a heated discussion with some of the other workers but was eager to help me out. We went to find the wood and I thought I would also need a sledgehammer, so I asked him what the word for hammer is. Nyundo is hammer he told me and as I needed a large one and I knew the word for large was kubwa I said, “Need nyundo kubwa.
I repeated nyundo kubwa a few times and then we walked on looking for the sledge. Then Alphonse asked someone else to help me as he figured it must be in the Welding area. “This man is a specialist!” he said, “He will help you.” We looked around the welding area with no luck in finding the nyundo kubwa so I was sent, once again to find Alphonse. He noticed my confusion and as he approached I said, with arms outstretched in wonder, “nyundo kuma.” – notice the difference – Alphonse could not contain himself and uncharacteristically burst into a fit of laughter with his hands covering his mouth. Once he was, once again, composed he stooped forward and came close to me shaking his head and conspicuously shaking a finger in front of his mouth. Then with hushed voice repeated the correct pronunciation, “nyundo kubwa...kubwa…kubwa. Not,” even quieter now, “kuma, OK?” “Ok?!?” I replied. He looked at me with an inquisitive look and said, “Do you know what you said.” I did not. He laughed a little again and whispered, “Kuma is vaginal,” I had asked him for a ‘vaginal hammer’. I must have looked very embarrassed but Alphonse chuckled and said, “no problem, no problem.” and we walked on to find the big hammer laughing quietly at our private joke.
We eventually found the hammer in a small closet in the back of the welding shop that had not much else in it but a few buckets and I’m sure a few spiders. Having found the first piece of the puzzle I was directed to the wood locker to sort out the timber situation. I looked through the fence and found a huge pile of African hard wood approximately 2 – 3 inches by 6 – 7 inches. It was rough cut but looked perfect for my purposes. It took about ten minutes to locate the man with the key to the wood locker. We eventually found him sleeping in the back of one of the many Land Cruisers and woke him. He was happy to help and showed no signs of being rudely woken. Alphonse accompanied me into the locker and we found a couple of good pieces. I wasn’t very picky and figured anything that was 8 feet long would do. Alphonse however has an eye for detail and wouldn’t let me choose a piece that had the slightest curve in it. I did not want to offend him so I accepted the 2 pieces he selected and off we went.
I was going to take them straight home but the hard wood was very heavy so Alphonse grabbed the second one and away we went. As I walked toward the gate, Alphonse detoured into the wood shop, I was curious as to why and was compelled to follow. Alphonse was jabbering away to the boys in the shop and they quickly fired up the rough planner and started to take the crap off the first piece of wood. I was sort of astounded that they were going to this trouble for a child’s toy but was happy that I would not have to do it myself after it was erected. I lent a hand on the second piece as one of the guys took the first piece to a second, finer, planner and ran it through exposing a beautiful grain pattern.
We next lopped off the cracked ends of the boards to give them an equal length and then went next door to the table saws to give each a good point for pounding them into the ground. The table saw “specialist” was very good at his job though I found his lack of closed toe shoes to be a concern for me. I kept thinking, ‘please don’t loose a toe while working on this’. Thankfully his toes were intact and there were nice points of both boards. Now it was time to find the pipe.
I walked to the pipe locker and was followed by a couple of guys who Alphonse had selected to assist me. Of course it was locked but with a large gap between the fencing and the wooden top of the locker. I selected a 3 – 4 foot piece of, what I would call, 1 inch pipe that had a cap welded at one end and a small bend at the other. It looked like scrap to me and was long enough for my purposes, but had to argue with the two guys before I could use it because they wanted me to take a full length of new pipe and cut it down. I was convinced that if the scrap fit the purpose then it was fine. Since we shared few common words in each other’s language they couldn’t really argue and I got my way.
Next we had to find the “specialist” in the area of cutting pipe and drilling holes. This guy was also the welding “specialist” and was currently engaged in welding a patch into the floorboard of a Land Cruiser ambulance. I watched (I didn’t look directly into the spark) and he seemed to be doing a good job though his idea of a welding helmet was his eyelids. That is not to say the actual welding helmet wasn’t beside him on the floor of the passenger side. It reminded me of those cyclists is Canada that ride their bikes through the UVic campus with their helmet hanging from the handlebars. Each time he would finish a small section of welding he would dip his rag into a teakettle – like the one your Grandma had displayed prominently in her china cabinet – and would cool the weld with the water inside. When he was finished I tried to ask him about not wearing the welding helmet. He replied through pantomime by closing his eyes very tight. I next asked with broken Swahili if his eyes hurt at night. I think he said something like from time to time. So I explained what I had been told about putting used, moist teabags on your eyes to ease the pain. He said, “Asante Sana (thank you very much) I have Soda,” as he produced a half bottle of Pepsi from the floor of the Cruiser and took a long sip. I gave up.
Side Bar about tea bags on the eyes.
Does anyone know if this really works? I think this may be something that veteran welders tell the new guy in the hope that he/she will try it and come to work the next day with eyelids stained to the colour of tea. Well… let me know what you think.
So where was I…Oh ya I see it just up there…
We walked over to the drill press, and when I say drill press I know that some of you are thinking of that little number that you have in your garage or workshop, this drill press however, is the mother of all drill presses. It probably weighs just over a couple of tons. The pole that the hydraulic lift moves the unit up and down on has a 12-inch diameter and rises to a height of about 7 feet. The one-inch chuck will accept bit of at least 6 inches. Adam, the welding specialist took the pipe and while my back was turned for a second chopped the cap off the one end and returned to find out what size of bit we would need for the wood. We went into the garage stores and found a very clean set of calipers, Adam measured the pipe at 35mm and we set off to find the correct bit. We quickly located a huge bucket of bits ranging in size from 1 – 4 inches and Adam’s deft hand found the right bit with his first stab into the bucket. So now with the correct bit in hand it was off to the drill press to get some work done.
We secured the bit with a swift smack of a smaller bit and opened the vise to the right size. This operation took another hard smack with the spare bit and we then got “help” from another apparent specialist; this one, a vise specialist. He turned the screw to tighten the vise until it was about a half an inch from being snug and said, “OK good.” I laughed to myself and angled the board so that it was actually snug as Adam set the drill in the center over our mark. The bit was so dull that it took about a minute and a half to get through the wood. I removed it right away to the amazement of the vise “specialist” and we set the next piece in place. Our vise man was keen to tighten the vise this time and smacked it repeatedly with a heavy piece of steel until it was closer to a quarter inch from snug and gave a big smile at his accomplishment. I was more pleased and Adam set the drill in place once more and started our hole. This time he made it most of the way through in about 2 minutes and stopped short of complete to turn the board over. I was a bit surprised as this would mean more vise work but we just flipped it and hit it with the drill quickly and we were off again. We carried our materials to the backyard of the house and Adam set off to find digging implements.
He returned with a pickax and a Tanzanian shovel – a six-foot length of 2 inch galvanized pipe with an 8 inch by 3 inch bent spike at the bottom. Adam and I measured the distance between the posts and, me with the pick and him with the Tanzanian shovel, began to dig. We went down a foot or so and set our posts, took some measurements and dug another 6 inches or so. We again set the posts and began to fit the pipe into each board. I went from one side to the other hitting each side with the nyundo kubwa until we had it just right. It was then that Alphonse appeared with a couple of others bearing a gift.
Alphonse must have seen the guys cutting the grass for 3 days, as he brought me my own golf club grass cutter and offered cement to finish the job. At first I declined but after one of the grass cutting guys helped us set the posts I realized that to make a very secure toy, cement was going to have to go in the holes. So off I went with Alphonse, once again, to find some cement. I should have known by now that I could not do this on my own; that is not to say I am not capable of mixing and pouring cement its just that it doesn’t work that way here. So Alphonse introduced me to the “cement boss” and sent us to find the cement. I shouted back to Alphonse, “Is he the cement specialist?” Alphonse and his small crew laughed out loud and Alphonse shouted back, “Ndio, Ndio!!” (Yes, yes)
I followed Mr. Cement through and around the different hospital buildings, past the medical ward with its overflowing rooms, past Physiotherapy and a few other wards that I didn’t recognize. We came around a building to a small patch of earth where two young women were working with cement on a project that I really couldn’t tell you what it was. They stopped work immediately and greeted me with familiar Swahili and I responded. They quickly started to let fly with more that I did not understand and when I tried to let them know that I only knew a little Swahili they laughed at me – without pointing though. They then started in with more and more Swahili and I felt like a women walking past a Canadian construction site. I smiled at the women as we left and they returned to their work. I again took up my position as the follower and we made our way back through the hospital buildings and emerged close to our house. I kept following and was led directly to our backyard. I am still baffled that he knew where we lived but this seems to be common knowledge among those at the hospital as we are in Canada house…or so it seems.
I retrieved a bucket of water from the rainwater tank and we mixed up the cement, set the posts and began our pour. It turned out that we needed two wheelbarrows full and the cement boss took off and returned quickly with a second load. Once we had the cement in, I used the trowel to make it smooth and the workers took off with my thanks. Adam stayed behind to help me take the tools back to the garage.
I came back and showed the girls and during the rest of the day all our friends as well. In all, I had help from 12 guys. I am happy to have the bar up and Abby’s initials in the cement. After a few days of sprinkling water on the cement morning and night Abby will be swinging and dangling to her heart’s content.
