Today was the last day
of work. LAST DAY OF WORK. That’s a pretty big deal. Basically to break it
down, it means that everything has to be done today and everything has to be
wrapped up today. Not tomorrow morning (because we are catching the 8 AM bus to
Managua (BAM! On the trip home!)). So let’s start this shiznit and get ready
for the ride. Cold shower. Breakfast. Filling water bottles. Splitting up to
head to the bike shop (Dan) to get the wheelchair put together and the clinic
(me) where I was to work on testing those autoclaves. I arrived at the clinic
at like 8:30 AM and immediately got the two autoclaves prepped for their
cycles. I started both of the cycles and with 5 minutes or so the power cut off
to the hallway lights and to the outlet I was using. This time I knew
immediately that the autoclaves were drawing too much current and tripped the
breaker (sorry about that SILAIS). Anyways I wanted to make a run back to the
hostel to grab my Spanish to English dictionary to translate part of the manual
for the Tuttnauer autoclave into Spanish (the screen at minimum) so they could
understand what they were doing on the unit. I trekked back to the hostel to
find two other Nicaraguan travelers standing outside the locked hostel (as Sol
and Luis had headed out somewhere in town for something). I thought of climbing
up the balcony, but it would have looked quite strange to them, so I headed the
long distance back to the centro de salud and walked back upstairs. I then
started working on translating the manual for the screen and buttons. This
started out as just the screen and I added several arrows indicating what the
lights on the bottom meant as well. I translated the whole page for the other
displays and buttons too (on the front). After that I started translating the
error messages that would pop up on the screen and made it pretty far through
the translation when the power to the entire of San Carlos went out (I know I tripped
the breaker 3 times in the past two days, but I sure as heck did not cause that
one). Also during this time I consulted with Guillermo about the translation
and he actually said most of it was good (with only a minor correction about
butón vs. botón (botón is correct)). Anyways it was like 9:45 and I decided
that my work would be better served at the hospital so I packed up and left. I
was supposed to teach the guy driving the equipment to Los Chiles how to use
the autoclaves and tell him about the working technology at 9:30, but he wasn’t
there when I left. When I arrived at the hospital Dan was out getting ready to
start working on the drilling project in the back section (the second of 3
areas to put chains up). Anyways he was ready to start drilling the holes for
the second set of four bolts when I arrived and he started drilling after
updating me on what had happened at the hospital (basically just arrived with
the wheelchair and had prepped for drilling). Anyways he had also worked on the
chair in the OR (and had replaced the foam and duct taped the chair). We then
measured the holes to drill and concrete drilled them suckers. The first couple
of holes were good although we were still using the old drill bit, but shifted
to this longer one. Popo also was helping us a bit tightening the drill and
switching it over to “concrete” mode to bust through that hospital wall. Also
Popo had used his force to bust open the door into the unused office room on
the other side of the wall we started drilling. After doing that we finally
were able to get inside and finish the holes. Dan drilled the majority of those
holes and I cleaned them out with screwdrivers and bolts. I also had the task
of filing down the end of the bolts to make sure we could get the nuts on the
one end. This involved straight filing the end flat and then carving a notch in
the end to have the nut catch. I managed to get these done with minimal effort.
After that we would bang the bolt through the wall to ensure the good
connection and then add a metal plate and a washer and then tighten the whole
setup. We did this for the four bolts on the one wall and finished that without
issue. After that is was around 11 AM and we decided to start on the next
section before lunch. Our original plan was to drill across this nice broad
area and then connect it with chains, but the problem was this section spanned
two different rooms. I headed inside to get permission to enter these two rooms
from the boss lady and it seemed like forever until someone would finally come
talk to me. In the interim time I screwed the height measuring post to the
scale (which had fallen off because the screws were so loose). After all of the
waiting no one even came to talk to me but rather the boss came inside and told
me to go outside to Dan (this was not a good sign). Anyways during this time
the boss of the maternity ward apparently talked to “Flacco” the head of
maintenance and got our little drilling excursion shut down (because we were
causing a ton of noise pollution and “making babies cry” and mothers were
leaving the ward rooms. Sorry about that folks. Trying to make sure one of
these bottled tanks doesn’t come rocketing through the wall if the cap breaks
off. Anyways we thought that was pretty inconvenient so we had a chat with Popo
about the situation and then we busted into the maternity and “talked” to the
boss again with Popo there. He then laid out the situation and she allowed us
to resume drilling that shiznit. BAM! Affirmative action FTW! After this Popo
and I checked out the rooms to drill into. It turned out that one of the rooms
was a bathroom with tiled walls off of one of the maternity ward rooms and the
other was just an unused room off the maternity ward. I checked out the
bathroom with Popo and decided it was not worth drilling through the tile or
removing one (as the moisture from the open bucket of water and other water
residues would probably ruin the bolts and metal pretty soon). I quickly told
Dan through the wall to not drill where we initially had thought and then went
outside to recalculate where to drill. We then decided to limit is just to the
unused observation room (which would have no issue with the bolts). Anyways
after that I busted into the unused observation room (with two old tables for a
mother to lie on (and one with the leg spreader mechanism (for gynecology?).
These were caked in dust and there was a scale in the corner of the room. So
clearly this room was like command central and would not be able to house the
other side of our bolt project. Dan had already drilled both of the holes on
the outside of the wall and it was my duty to drill the two from the inside out
and connect the holes to make the passageway for the bolt. This sounded easier
than it ended up being (initially I had to be like a NASA astronaut sliding
over the tables on my back and contorting to fit in the spot for drilling).
Anyways after lugging all the gear inside (drill, knife, pliers, hammer and tape),
I measured and got prepped for drilling. Now to start this off I should
describe the noise level of our drill: basically it sounded like we were drilling
through wood with a megaphone on the drilling part. So I don’t blame the moms
for putting cotton in their eyes and leaving. Anyways it was nice that the
empty room that I was in created the extra amplifier for the sound. Anyways I
drilled the first hole and it wasn’t anywhere near the hole form the outside.
Basically we then tried banging this long hex wrench through the wall to find
the other end and connect the holes. After quite a bit of time like this I
eventually drilled a hole about a cm to the right and 1 cm down and hit quite
close to the original hole tunnel! BAM! It was just a matter of a bit more
cleaning of the hole and then banging the wrench through to make the full
bridge connection! After that we went to lunch as it was 1 and we wanted to
meet the two Holland chicks for lunch at the pizza place.
No comments:
Post a Comment