A Building Update

Some of you observant ones, will have noticed that we have not actually done any building. So what is happening?

Well it is looking good to start in the next 3 weeks – he says with a large amount of trepidation. Just to recap.

The deed plan that was wrong in August is sorted, and has been signed by the Prime Minister.

The church is now a registered organisation, again this needed a PM signature.

The land has now been defined accurately by GPS and we have an authorised piece of paper saying so.

The neighbourhood cell are happy with the project, and they have been keeping the land neat and tidy for us. (see photo)

The planners are happy with one storey - FANTASTIC!, after a detailed paper, and 4 meetings last week. They want more toilets, so over the weekend, Roger the architect in Glasgow, has done a plan for this. Sorted.

The planners also wanted a REMA certificate, so a full Environmental Impact Assessment was done by our consultants, and will be delivered to the Rwandan Development Board this afternoon. The certificate should be at the planners within a week.

The final piece of paperwork we need is the lease contract. This required a ministerial signature, which we have, and they have produced a legal document, which we also received yesterday. This we handed to the district council, and they have sent it with our papers to the land registration, for them to produce the Lease Contract, again promised within a week.

When we have the REMA certificate and the Lease Contract then the planners will give us the construction permit, which they have already started to work on, and we will then be able to start building.

Below are Kayitare and his son Jeff. These are real Rwandan small builders. A great delight to work with.  

Kayitare

Kayitare does not speak English. He was recommended by our friend Pete Andrews as having a good track record of building Vocational Training Centres. We have put a lot of faith is this recommendation, but so far this is working out very well. 

We could have gone for a tendering process but I was absolutely convinced that we would have run into all sorts of problems with this.

Jeff

Jeff speaks good english, which is just as well, and regular readers of the blog will know that he is an excellent musician. So far, he has completely failed to provide me with a CD of his music. Tomorrow he must or the contract is off! 


Jeff is also very good with email, which helps loads when you want to work back and forth on various issues.

Apart from concluding costs, and a construction agreement which I am finalising today, we need to work out the practicalities of the construction plan, money transfer, site checking and resolution of issues.

I could really do with another week to resolve these matters, but my flight back is Thursday, and the architect, Norbert Kalka, who is going to check the site as construction develops, has escaped my attentions by being in Germany this week – unfortunately I did not know this until about 2 hours before he left!

Would really like to see them all the week before Christmas to resolve matters, and get the construction started, but the cost of flights back is considerable at that time of year. May be able to jump back for 5 days - we will see, or perhaps I can do it by email!! (he says  - not at all convinced)

So, I think there will be photos of actual building in January, and certainly by end of January when Roger, Bad Boy (if he agrees) and I return.


Your prayers and thoughts about the project are much appreciated.


This afternoon, I prepare the following:


A paper on the street children and their needs, for my meeting tomorrow with Albert the Director of the Workforce Development Agency, and the budgetary plan for the construction.


It all seems a long way from being a GP. Heaven knows what it is going to be like to jump back into Scottish GP mode after the sabbatical is over in February. We will cope with that when it comes.