Dawda, the mason, was aggravated with me this morning and I was aggravated with him. I had the hardest time getting him to realize that all 8 of the center pillars had to be the same height. Part of the problem was the language barrier. The pillar forms come in 4 sections. That would be great if all the sections were the same height. Some of the sections are 2 feet high and some 2 ½ feet high; some are 10 inches in diameter and some are 9 inches. Dawda thought the 2 ½ feet forms were 3 feet. Now you can see our problem. He thought that since he used 4 sections on each pillar all would be the same height. At one point Dawda just sat down on the ladder and looked at me like I had lost my mind; but tape measures don’t lie and in the end he agreed that there was a discrepancy of 2 feet.
Later in the afternoon we went to check on the project and saw that he was putting huge dividers between the pillars that made the open air pavilion look like it had windows. Fortunately Red had come to the job site by this time and he was able to explain what we wanted; the masons had to remove several blocks and reset them. Before we got back to the jobsite Red had tried to explain what needed to be done but Dawda was fed up and told Red that he was not a mason and that he should leave the job site. When it was time to pay the day laborers for the day we gave them a little extra money; they were happy. We also gave Dawda a little extra for making the changes. As we were leaving I told Dawda that maybe tomorrow would be a better day and we would not be making so many changes. I told him not to be too mad at me for the changes; he said he was not mad and I too should not be mad with him. We grinned at each other, shook hands and parted in good spirits.
Abochi, the roofer, showed up at the close of the day. He is going to come tomorrow and set up a sample rafter so we can see the pitch of the roof to make sure it is where we want it to be. After we are happy with the pillar height he will be able to take measurements and frighten us with the amount of lumber the roof is going to take! Ha!
We went to town this evening to buy a guinea fowl for supper because I did not feel like cooking and as we were passing by the vendor that roasts whole goats we noticed that the goat was finished cooking so we stopped and bought a front quarter. We will have a wonderful supper tonight! Steve is in the kitchen making garlic / olive oil dipping sauce for our bread.
Thank you for all you do for us and for the work.
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
