Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Back to Building Bridges!

The big bridge project, in Las Flores, is progressing again!

I've stepped away from blogging for a bit, but I'm back with big news! The bridge project was at a standstill, because of problems between the government and the available crane companies, in negotiating a contract for the lifting of the bridge beams.

This part of the work requires two big cranes to move about down in the riverbed, and so it must be done when the water level is low - but the negotiation standoff took up most of the dry season. Just now, as the rainy season is gearing up, the cranes are in the river. This makes things trickier, but -you know Allen!- we're making it work anyway! We've spent some time praying for dry weather this past week - which isn't our usual prayer this time of year. When storm clouds gather in sight of our property I have the job of calling Allen and warning him of impending rain. The bridge location is down in a valley with limited views, but up on our mountain I can see the storms coming from almost all directions, so I'm the lookout!

Boo took many pictures of the cranes lifting the beams up onto the bridge supports. I'll post a few of those below. There have been so many problems, delays, breakdowns, weather issues, etc, that this work is going slowly, but the beams ARE GOING UP!






Because of the limitations of the cranes, the beam had to be set into one slot, then the cranes had to be moved, then the beam was moved into its final location.

This photo was taken  on Sunday, when the first beam was in it's final position. There are a total of 12 beams, and we expect/hope that 8 of those will be in place by the end of today (Wednesday).

Allen and Russell have made good use of the time they weren't building this bridge . . . they've been working on building our home, so that eventually we can live in a house instead of a warehouse. I should post pictures of that progress soon . . . but for now, watch for more progress on the big bridge!!!!!