Hey all, I finally have the bandwidth to post some low quality videos. I have one from my old house in Ha Sefako and one from my new house in Maseru. Enjoy.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
First Full Week and a New House
Hey All
Sorry for the big gap between substantive blog reports; it’s been busy around here.
First of all, let me get some business items out of the way.
1. Until I get my own PO Box (it’s $20 a year, but you have to apply for it) I’ll be using the Peace Corps PO Box in Maseru. I updated the address in the sidebar.
2. I generally have un-interrupted cell phone service. I also have internet access, but I have to pay per MB for internet service, which means video Skyping is free for you, but will probably cost me $0.50/minute. Just voice Skyping will be cheaper, so just send me a text and I’ll let you know if I’m free. 6pm to 10pm my time is best, which is noon to 4pm on the East Coast.
3. If you send music please don’t send music you got from iTunes because they don’t work without the password. If you send a CD with MP3s it works great. Don’t bother with the plastic cases because they break in the mail and scratch the CDs. CDs are resilient in envelopes by themselves.
Ok, on to more interesting things.
Last night was my first night in my new house. I got the keys Thursday, but didn’t have sheets or food or any of those necessities. It’s a pretty big 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath with spacious yards, lots of steel on the windows and razor wire on the cinder block fence. It’s in need of some fresh paint and some yard work, but it’s safe and in a quiet neighborhood so I’m pretty excited about it. The only furniture in the house is a bed, so I’m sitting on my old bathing tub to write this. I’m hoping to mooch some furniture from the Embassy or from other expats, but I’m new to town and don’t really know any. It might be a while before I have a chair.
My first full week at work was good. I’m still trying to piece together what exactly I’ll be doing for MCA, but some of it is coming into place. MCA is an “entity” that was setup by the Government of Lesotho to manage all of the projects that are part of the MCC Compact. I am part of the Infrastructure program, which entails water infrastructure and health infrastructure development. Water infrastructure development has a number of components, but it looks like I’ll be working primarily with the rural portion of it. We will be funding the construction of 250 village water supplies and 10,000 pit latrines (the government will be funding up to another 20,000). The rural water supply and sanitation project is supposed to affect 125,000 people, which is over 5% of the population of Lesotho.
Now, the design of the system will be done by district engineers or consulting engineers, while a consultant company out of Ottawa (Canada that is) will be doing the project management portion of the work. They will be working directly with the Department of Rural Water Supply (Lesotho government) who will be doing designs and the contractors who will be building. So, MCA is not doing design work or lower level project management, we are there to do the high level program management. We are the customer. I will be involved in helping to decide high level program management, including designing contracts, reviewing reports, doing some site visits to check on project status and hopefully doing some design reviews.
I’m not sure if that really clarifies anything, but feel free to ask questions if you’ve got any. I’ll let you know more as I figure it out myself.
In other news, to reiterate, we received a Self-Help Grant from the US Embassy to put in a solar power system for Sefako High School. The ceremony is November 4th, so I’ll know more about how that will workout when it happens. It will be about 650W of solar panels, a 2kW pure-sine wave inverter, batteries and regulators. It should be enough to have consistent and reliable energy for the printers and 2 laptops in the office, and 2 desktop computers in the library as well as lighting for the staff room, office and library. It’s about $6000 worth of equipment and I’ll get to head up to help them install the system and get it going.
I also just submitted a Peace Corps Partnership Grant to help get science equipment for Sefako High School. Liz Fay has started raising funds with her high school, and hopefully by February or March we’ll get to put in a big order to get chemicals, microscopes and other equipment. A volunteer will be replacing me at the high school in January, so they will be heavily involved in getting the lab setup. If you’re interested in helping support the science lab, please let me know and we can talk about how you can help.
I think that’s it for now. I hope all is well at home. Things are good here. Cheers.
Oh, and I'll get some pictures up of the new house this week.
Sorry for the big gap between substantive blog reports; it’s been busy around here.
First of all, let me get some business items out of the way.
1. Until I get my own PO Box (it’s $20 a year, but you have to apply for it) I’ll be using the Peace Corps PO Box in Maseru. I updated the address in the sidebar.
2. I generally have un-interrupted cell phone service. I also have internet access, but I have to pay per MB for internet service, which means video Skyping is free for you, but will probably cost me $0.50/minute. Just voice Skyping will be cheaper, so just send me a text and I’ll let you know if I’m free. 6pm to 10pm my time is best, which is noon to 4pm on the East Coast.
3. If you send music please don’t send music you got from iTunes because they don’t work without the password. If you send a CD with MP3s it works great. Don’t bother with the plastic cases because they break in the mail and scratch the CDs. CDs are resilient in envelopes by themselves.
Ok, on to more interesting things.
Last night was my first night in my new house. I got the keys Thursday, but didn’t have sheets or food or any of those necessities. It’s a pretty big 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath with spacious yards, lots of steel on the windows and razor wire on the cinder block fence. It’s in need of some fresh paint and some yard work, but it’s safe and in a quiet neighborhood so I’m pretty excited about it. The only furniture in the house is a bed, so I’m sitting on my old bathing tub to write this. I’m hoping to mooch some furniture from the Embassy or from other expats, but I’m new to town and don’t really know any. It might be a while before I have a chair.
My first full week at work was good. I’m still trying to piece together what exactly I’ll be doing for MCA, but some of it is coming into place. MCA is an “entity” that was setup by the Government of Lesotho to manage all of the projects that are part of the MCC Compact. I am part of the Infrastructure program, which entails water infrastructure and health infrastructure development. Water infrastructure development has a number of components, but it looks like I’ll be working primarily with the rural portion of it. We will be funding the construction of 250 village water supplies and 10,000 pit latrines (the government will be funding up to another 20,000). The rural water supply and sanitation project is supposed to affect 125,000 people, which is over 5% of the population of Lesotho.
Now, the design of the system will be done by district engineers or consulting engineers, while a consultant company out of Ottawa (Canada that is) will be doing the project management portion of the work. They will be working directly with the Department of Rural Water Supply (Lesotho government) who will be doing designs and the contractors who will be building. So, MCA is not doing design work or lower level project management, we are there to do the high level program management. We are the customer. I will be involved in helping to decide high level program management, including designing contracts, reviewing reports, doing some site visits to check on project status and hopefully doing some design reviews.
I’m not sure if that really clarifies anything, but feel free to ask questions if you’ve got any. I’ll let you know more as I figure it out myself.
In other news, to reiterate, we received a Self-Help Grant from the US Embassy to put in a solar power system for Sefako High School. The ceremony is November 4th, so I’ll know more about how that will workout when it happens. It will be about 650W of solar panels, a 2kW pure-sine wave inverter, batteries and regulators. It should be enough to have consistent and reliable energy for the printers and 2 laptops in the office, and 2 desktop computers in the library as well as lighting for the staff room, office and library. It’s about $6000 worth of equipment and I’ll get to head up to help them install the system and get it going.
I also just submitted a Peace Corps Partnership Grant to help get science equipment for Sefako High School. Liz Fay has started raising funds with her high school, and hopefully by February or March we’ll get to put in a big order to get chemicals, microscopes and other equipment. A volunteer will be replacing me at the high school in January, so they will be heavily involved in getting the lab setup. If you’re interested in helping support the science lab, please let me know and we can talk about how you can help.
I think that’s it for now. I hope all is well at home. Things are good here. Cheers.
Oh, and I'll get some pictures up of the new house this week.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
SOLAR POWER!!!
Hey Everybody, I just got a very exciting email. Some of you will remember that I helped Sefako High School write a Self-Help Grant with the US Embassy to get a solar power system for the high school. I just got notice the school was awarded the grant. I want to thank a group of people at NGC who helped do some sizing and design work for a system for the school. It paid off!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Pictures
Hey all, I finally go around to posting an album of pictures. It's in Facebook, but you can access it even if you don't have Facebook by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser:
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139233&id=10802728&l=5bcf08d77f
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139233&id=10802728&l=5bcf08d77f
Saturday, October 17, 2009
1/2 way there
Sorry for the long interruption in blog posts. I haven’t been on my usual schedule.
On Tuesday afternoon the Peace Corps picked me up in Ha Sefako and moved me and all my stuff to Maseru. I’ve been living at the Peace Corps training center since then, waiting for the lease for my new house to be signed and for new burglar bars to be installed. Best case scenario I’ll be moving in early next week, but more likely it will be late next week.
More importantly, I started my new job on Wednesday. My job description is still being defined, but it looks like it’s going to be high level project management. Millennium Challenge Account – Lesotho (MCA-L) has a few big water infrastructure projects that are supposed to be completed by September, 2013. One of them is the Metalong Dam Project, which will provide bulk water for residential and industrial purposes to the greater Maseru area and larger outlying towns. There is also a lot of pipe network extension and rehabilitation in peri-urban areas. And it looks like I will be involved primarily on the rural water supply project. Goals are to complete 250 village water supply systems and build 10,000 Ventilated, Improved Pit Latrines (VIPs). Additional donor and government assistance could boost the total number of VIPs to 30,000. The rural water project is supposed to affect 125,000 people.
MCA-L will be working with government paid District Engineers for designs and has hired consultants out of Canada to monitor the drawings and manage the contractors. My job will be to do some of MCA’s reviews of project design files and interface with the consultants on projects. It’s a little outside of my comfort zone, which means I’ll get to learn a lot.
That’s the quick version of what’s going on now. It’s 180 degrees from what I was doing in Ha Sefako, and it’s been fun to look at engineering drawings and meet the multi-national team that I’ll be working with. There’s a lot of work to go around, so I’ll be quite busy. When I get moved into my new place I’ll post some pictures and give a more colorful description of what’s going on here.
Hope all is well with everybody at home.
Cheers.
On Tuesday afternoon the Peace Corps picked me up in Ha Sefako and moved me and all my stuff to Maseru. I’ve been living at the Peace Corps training center since then, waiting for the lease for my new house to be signed and for new burglar bars to be installed. Best case scenario I’ll be moving in early next week, but more likely it will be late next week.
More importantly, I started my new job on Wednesday. My job description is still being defined, but it looks like it’s going to be high level project management. Millennium Challenge Account – Lesotho (MCA-L) has a few big water infrastructure projects that are supposed to be completed by September, 2013. One of them is the Metalong Dam Project, which will provide bulk water for residential and industrial purposes to the greater Maseru area and larger outlying towns. There is also a lot of pipe network extension and rehabilitation in peri-urban areas. And it looks like I will be involved primarily on the rural water supply project. Goals are to complete 250 village water supply systems and build 10,000 Ventilated, Improved Pit Latrines (VIPs). Additional donor and government assistance could boost the total number of VIPs to 30,000. The rural water project is supposed to affect 125,000 people.
MCA-L will be working with government paid District Engineers for designs and has hired consultants out of Canada to monitor the drawings and manage the contractors. My job will be to do some of MCA’s reviews of project design files and interface with the consultants on projects. It’s a little outside of my comfort zone, which means I’ll get to learn a lot.
That’s the quick version of what’s going on now. It’s 180 degrees from what I was doing in Ha Sefako, and it’s been fun to look at engineering drawings and meet the multi-national team that I’ll be working with. There’s a lot of work to go around, so I’ll be quite busy. When I get moved into my new place I’ll post some pictures and give a more colorful description of what’s going on here.
Hope all is well with everybody at home.
Cheers.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Job Change
A few of you have heard by now, but I'm going to be moving to Maseru to do some engineering work. Teaching was not good for me. Luckily as I was asking the Peace Corps for something different, the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Lesotho was looking an engineer to help with their Water Infrastructure Development program. So, next week sometime I'll be moving to Maseru to begin doing some engineering and project management work on a tight-scheduled, six year, $162 million project that will provide better urban water supply and rural sanitation and water supply to Basotho and their textile industries.
The move to Maseru will not only be great because I'll be able to learn a lot and use my schooling, but I'll also have the resources to do some work on secondary projects that weren't possible in Ha Sefako. I have a permanent magnet, DC motor that I'm hoping to turn into a wind turbine, I did some surveying for a Masotho man who is trying to pump water over a hill to irrigate his tree nursery and fill the fish pond he made, and I need to design a small footbridge that I got a small grant for a few weeks ago.
Also, I'll have consistent phone and internet, which means you all will get to keep track of me and I'll get to keep track of you. I am beyond excited to say the least. Students were not too happy with me last week when I told them I'd be leaving, but I'll be back up to Ha Sefako to help out with the various projects I'm involved in and hopefully we'll be able to get some of the motivated students into Maseru to get them familiar with their capital and vocational and educational opportunities available to them.
Um, that's all for now. Pleas give me a call if you can. I have a 3G modem now, so I can skype and such (read, free).
The move to Maseru will not only be great because I'll be able to learn a lot and use my schooling, but I'll also have the resources to do some work on secondary projects that weren't possible in Ha Sefako. I have a permanent magnet, DC motor that I'm hoping to turn into a wind turbine, I did some surveying for a Masotho man who is trying to pump water over a hill to irrigate his tree nursery and fill the fish pond he made, and I need to design a small footbridge that I got a small grant for a few weeks ago.
Also, I'll have consistent phone and internet, which means you all will get to keep track of me and I'll get to keep track of you. I am beyond excited to say the least. Students were not too happy with me last week when I told them I'd be leaving, but I'll be back up to Ha Sefako to help out with the various projects I'm involved in and hopefully we'll be able to get some of the motivated students into Maseru to get them familiar with their capital and vocational and educational opportunities available to them.
Um, that's all for now. Pleas give me a call if you can. I have a 3G modem now, so I can skype and such (read, free).
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