Mikes job . . . and more adventures

So, we’ve been here 8 weeks now, and in response to many requests, here’s an attempt to tell you a bit more about what I do at work. So far this week I’ve done the following:

• Reviewed our programme for well construction and well refurbishment. Many were polluted or destroyed by the tsunami
• Put together an internal proposal requesting that we get involved in the provision of solid waste disposal sites for handling domestic waste. Sadly household waste is generally dumped anywhere in many parts of the country. I am hoping to gain support to develop well managed landfill sites, and by “coincidence” bumped into a chap from the UK who manages Brighton’s solid waste disposal sites, so he has been fantastic in helping me develop good proposals
• Visited a number of sites to review options for provision of regional wastewater treatment works (WwTW). There is only 1 single WwTW in the south of Sri Lanka, and that was commissioned last week. We need many more here
• Evaluated the provision of manual versus electrical pumps for household water supplies. The difficulty is the ability to pay for electricity versus the greater likelihood of a manual pump breaking and not being repaired. Thankfully I’ve found out that my employer has already developed agreements with the relevant national and local government departments for ongoing maintenance
• Progressed the development of construction administration procedures, needed to manage our contractors consistently
• Evaluated options for providing surface water drainage at a number of flooded housing sites. Our beneficiaries are being provided with the worst land available as those are the sites that no-one else wants to build on
• Progressed options for the management of gully suckers and disposal of the sewage that they collect from transitional shelter and housing septic tanks. Current disposal regimes are unacceptable
• Had three meetings with other NGOs (charities) regarding collaboration on much of the above, to ensure we’re working with a common strategy and not pulling against each other. We are combining funds in places to ensure we develop robust solutions, rather than several separate attempts that risk being unsuccessful
• Met with two other NGOs regarding developing a common approach to the decommissioning of temporary shelter sites. Decommissioning can be more costly than provision of the original shelter site as we have to consider future site use
• Put together a number of variation orders to contracts for the provision of final finishings to houses
• Agreed a way forward with colleagues, for dealing with a poor performing contractor
  
  . . . and it’s only Tuesday morning! This all feels very rewarding and worthwhile, to feel that I'm helping progress some essential improvements to the local and national infrastructure

Family news:
Last weekend we hired a driver with Sarah’s parents to take us to Yala National park. The landscape on the way is more swamp like becoming more desertified the further east you go.

On the way we visited:

• Matara underground temple. An amazing place with a “secret” underground monastery and tunnels dating back at least 600 years. In more recent years a huge Buddha was constructed on top – the photo shows Hazel stood at the bottom, some distance in front of it, so it’s bigger than this even makes it appear
• Mirissa beach, which is a beautiful cove, with fishermen who sit on sticks - no idea how they manage it!. We ate Seer fish, which is quite like sword fish, and is just gorgeous
• We took Mike and Hazel to visit one of my construction sites in Hambantota - the block of flats pictured above. You can also see the concrete blocks they are making on site in the second picture

One the way to Yala park we saw an enormous crocodile, maybe 20foot long, near to the side of the road – we think it was eyeing up a nearby cow. We decided not to go walking in that area!

At Yala park we saw wild crocodiles, elephants (one chased us!), mongooses, water buffalo, eagles, buzzards, bee-eaters, swallows, kingfishers, peacocks, hornbills, spoonbills, white spotted deer, and loads of other animals and birds. We were seeking out bears and leopards, which other groups managed to see, but we only managed to see leopard footprints.

To top this excellent week, Sarah’s parents looked after Joseph lastnight and we went out for a lovely meal at the Lighthouse hotel, overlooking the sea. What a privilege. . .

So all in all it’s been a fantastic week and we feel very very blessed to be here, and reasonably useful.

Photos of Yala trip below. The park was hit badly by the tsunami. The remains of a restaurant are shown below.