Blog from Doumandzou
It’s Friday! TGIF
We thought that meant the start of the weekend but found out last night that people work Saturday as well. TGIS.
For only a week of work, there has been visible progress. After clearing and demolition that continues, we will have finished making all the window blocks, and the vertical planks above the windows will run across the whole front of the buildings. All the doors and frames have been placed.
At any given time, there are as many as six people working with the three of us: Christian, the foreman, Nico, his partner, and four strong, young teenage boys from the village: Arcel, Terence,Jean-Baptiste and David. The latter four have been doing the real muscle work, including brick-making which John helped out on one morning. Mary continues to treat the wood and Henk pitches in everywhere, specializing in demolition. Nguema who is our host comes up to help each day doing some masonry.
We have settled into routines, starting around 8am, breaking after noon, and then returning for a few hours in the late afternoon. Christian is on a slightly different routine arriving early and then returning for breakfast and working through until five or so.
I should add a number of the primary school children, who are on double shifts, hang around the site and pitch in a lot.
Upcoming blogs on food, the temporary school, and a bit of archaeology we uncovered.
Work starts
Monday was the first full day of physical labor, what we had come for, what all the months of preparation had been leading to.
First job was moving the 400 cement blocks that had already been made and cleaning out the classrooms. At the same time, demolition started, removing the doors and windows and rotted beams and rafters. A lot of help from school kids and residents.
Our foreman (chef de chantier) Christian oversaw two separate deliveries of wood and sand. Each took more than twice as long as expected with trucks breaking down and getting stuck. Still, he persisted and the load of sand rolled in to town shortly before dark last night.
I should add our new best friend is Aspirin. Sore muscles.
Corps de Garde
Yesterday we had our formal introduction to the village.
Every village has a small rectangular hut strategically placed near the road and in full view of the entrances to the village. It is called the Corps de Garde and that’s where we met yesterday. (Photo below)
Going back and forth between French and the local language, Fang, Gaston presented the history of the school built by Peace Corps 50 years ago. He introduced the four of us by name and explained our purpose. He asked for help from the village in cleaning up the school site and in taking care of us. The former Deputy of the National Assembly, Ekabane, and the Chef de Canton, also spoke.
John, in his broken French mixed up with remnants of Spanish, gave a little background to Encore de la Paix, saying that Gabon changed our lives 35 years ago and that ever since we left, the country has been in our minds and our hearts. We wanted to do something to say Merci to the people of Gabon. He thanked Bob and Gaston for all their arrangements and he talked about the special connection between the town of Woerden in the Netherlands where Henk is from and Doumandzou. By chance the town next to Doumandzou up the road is called Holland.
Bob also spoke and talked about the original group who built the school mentioning by name Jerry Anderson. Gaston passed out the photos we had brought and one woman wanted to take the one of the young Jerry playing the drum home with her.
Our foreman, Christian, came and we went over the work plan for our first day.
Au village
A long drive Friday from Libreville to Doumandzou. The road was good, paved all the way to Mitzic. Our indispensable guide Bob Weisflog was at the wheel. We stopped in Ndjole for a lunch on the side of the road for chopped beef and fried plantains.
In Mitzic we made a couple of courtesy calls, meeting the President of the local assembly who remembered his English teacher, Jimmy Jones.
We arrived au village shortly after dark and are staying at the home of Gaston Biyogo. A wonderful host.
Today was setting up and organizing a little. We toured the school and mapped out in broad terms the work ahead. About 400 cement blocks have already been made.
We have met village elders, all pleased we are here. We showed the photos of the school under construction in 1965 along with Jerry Anderson and a few remembered him, calling him Gerald, en francais.
The photo here is of Mary and Henk at the school.
Dateline Doumandzou, le centre du monde, in the words of our hosts. 1pm GMT.
6 January, 2015 17:00
The first of our group has arrived in Libreville, well taken care of by Bob Weisflog and Jean Pierre Lindeme.
We’ve been working logistics since arrival, especially linking up to cell service.
With many materials already at Doumandzou, we made some final purchases today for tools and aluminum roofing. Here’s Bob at the hardware store.
On our way, almost
It’s real, and it’s just around the corner.
Thanks to the generous contributions of over 50 of you, Encore de la Paix is moving close to our goal of completing our first project, the renovation of a primary school built by Peace Corps in 1965 in the village of Doumandzou, Gabon. It’s been a long journey, but in less than two weeks, on January 9th, the first group of us will arrive in the village to work side-by-side with volunteers from Doumandzou in making repairs to the school and to the school’s teachers’ houses.
The first contingent from outside Gabon numbers five, and includes Drew Howard and Claire Thiebault from San Francisco, Henk Brouwer from Woerden, Netherlands and Mary and John Dickson from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. With the efforts of Bob Weisflog in Libreville, many of the materials purchased with your donations have already arrived in Doumandzou. In making all the preparations, Bob has worked closely with Gaston Biyogo, an advisor in the Ministry of Health who grew up in the village. Several villagers have agreed to house us once we arrive, and they have identified a local contractor to serve as our construction foreman. Expect photos of all these people once we are on the ground.
We are excited, and especially so with the support of those Peace Corps volunteers who built the school 50 years ago.
I close with these photos from Jerry Anderson, who took these while the school was under construction.
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Encore de la Paix 