This article is from page 84 of the 2008-02-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 84 JPG
AT THE weekend, Bishop of Killa- loe, Willie Walsh, officially blessed a building that everyone in the know said couldn’t happen.
In just eight weeks — 28 labouring days — 165 volunteers and their work- ers from the Port Elizabeth township erected a new health centre and hos- pice against all odds.
For weeks, the activity on site was frenzied, with volunteers gulping breakfast, boarding the bus at 6.30am and working until 6pm or later in the evening.
The first crew to arrive were con- fronted with the daunting sight of the huge foundations and a mountain of blocks waiting to be laid.
Alan Carmody from Lisseycasey, the foreman with the first group, said he “got a shock when I saw the size 0) Mad otom obun Conberca
But everyone, including the locals, got stuck in and worked hard. It was so exciting to be involved. We’ll nev- er forget it.”
The teams pushed on through days of hard slog in punishing heat and before the first crew left, they had laid 130,000 blocks.
The next team cooked as the sun beat down on the silver, reflective material of the roof while they sealed the building.
The tradesmen did what they’re best at and everybody else did what they were told, whether it was painting, plumbing or carrying never ending supplies of water to labourers work- ing in puddles of their own sweat.
Each of the 62 windows had to have up to 16 panes of glass put in and gla- Ziers used half a ton of putty.
Workers laid 168 cubic meters of mortar and the volunteers downed 2,330 litres of bottled water .
In the scorching African sun, the builders of hope used 11 kilos of sun- block. And still they burned.
By the time the final team arrived, the structure had taken shape but there was still an enormous amount of plumbing, painting, plastering, til- ing, hanging ceilings and carpentry to do. And that was all before the massive clean up began.
Finally, everything was in ship shape, with the exception of the the floor covering which had to be put on the long finger because the floors had been laid so fast they hadn’t time to dry.
But the Irish carried the criac with them in their suitcases. Tin whistles, come all-ye’s, slagging matches be- tween teams of workers, ludicrous match making attempts and requests to fill the hotel swimming pool with aletoj mrs l MN eCom Ne OlMmNe Com abnE
As supervisor on site for the entire project, Jimmy Kenny from Dublin said, ‘We had a laugh’.