Preparing for the container

This week we split up for the arrival of our container. Heleen went to Kampala to arrange clearance of the container (and to do a whole lot of other things) and Michel stayed in Fort Portal to supervise the construction of a simple concrete slab for the final destination of the container. We need to place the container “first time right” because there is not a crane in the vicinity of Fort Portal that can lift it, so we bring a crane from Kampala. But what about the other containers in Fort Portal, you think; well these either do not leave the truck and are emptied on site or are lifted after empting.

The construction of the concrete slab needed a bit more arranging than expected. Since the container will stand on the ground for some time we want to place it above the ground on concrete to prevent rusting. The cheese making requires the container to be place on a level surface. And taking into consideration that the ground has a slope and the rainfall can be extreme, the design of the concrete slab includes a brick wall foundation, reinforced concrete pillars and hard cores (big stones) on a cement base to support the weight of the container. A local architect that draws our ideas about the renovation of the old house made the design.

We hired a contractor, agreed on a price and just before we wanted to start on Monday the Mayor and the Town Clerk including a delegation of politicians were inspecting the road work near our plot. The Mayor saw the building materials and ordered the contractor to abort work that was not even started. Michel spend the rest of the day with the architect writing a proposal letter to the Town Clerk, including drawings of the concrete slab and discussing with the Town Clerk on how to proceed. An approval of the Structures Engineer was needed, but the man was not in town and could not be replaced. Finally the next day we got an informal approval after an on-site inspection of the Structures Engineer.

Materials like sand and the hard cores are bought in the surroundings of Fort Portal and brought by the architect who conveniently owns a small truck (he also has a driving school that is run by his wife from the same office). With the truck most materials were delivered behind the house. To reach there, the truck has to drive down a sloping driveway. The house is approximately 3 meters below road level. With every load, the nicely decorated walls of the driveway moved outwards. The truck holding the container would never be able to pass the house without collapsing the driveway. We decided that the 12 meter driveway needed to be repaired in a permanent way: remove the 1 meter top layer, put in rocks in a particular order, use iron mesh to hold the walls and finish the top layer with small grid. Meaning more truckloads of stones and grid and hiring hard working men.