Alpin Technik manager Eric Kuhn is back from his trip to Tres
Unidos, where he had a busy week initialising the construction process
of our footbridge. Here is an overview of what we reached so far
(for the correspondig pictures see the
gallery):
Eric
and Damaso, our "rigth hand" on place, bought most of the material
and brought it to Tres Unidos. Some basic tools like a saw and saw
blades, welding equipment, paint brushes etc. completed their shopping
list. Now, all the equipment is stored on at the mayors house.
We
explained the bridge and built a model of it with help of the village's
welder. There is a small garage in Tres Unidos, where everybody gets
his metal work done. This is quite advantageous, since we do not need
to have the welding work done in Tarapoto and the villagers
economically benefit a little from the bridge building.
Eric
and the volunteers measured out the construction ground and defined it
by wooden sticks. Since we explained thouroughly how important this
step is for the whole construction process, we hope that nobody removes
the sticks and they keep on using it for further measurements.
The
villagers started the excavation work. They will start we one abutment
first and finish it completely before the go to the other river side.
The
next steps were defined. Once they finished the excavation, they will
start the concrete work. Eric and the villagers together already built
a reinforcement cage , that will become the abutment's base. If this is
finished too, the pylon's foundation will be the next thing to do. Only
if they finished this, they will start with the same work on the
opposite river side.