Saturday October 19th I am not up so early this morning. After breakfast I assemble the parts for adding to our security. The area I am concentrating on is at the top of the stairs that lead to our balcony overlooking the school yard. This is our only entrance door. The balcony is about seven feet wide where the landing meets the half gate for access. I have a tubular gate frame designed for chain link fence, a small piece of chain link fence, six fencing straps, nuts and bolts, some electric fence post, a couple of gate hinges made for the next larger size gate tubing and two handmade brackets that I am going to use to mate up with the gate hinges. Gate hinges clamp around the tubing and have a female socket that rest slips over a pin on the fence half of the hinge. Since I am not attaching the gate to a post, I am using the brackets that were made for shutters. These are 2”x4” metal plates with an “L” shaped piece of steel rod welded to it with four holes drilled in the corners. When the gate is complete the gate part of the hinge will slide over these “L” shaped pieces and allow the gate to swing open. The gate frame is 40’ wide by 68’ tall, but it will serve my purposes better to use it 68” wide by 40” tall. The fence wire I have is 48” tall, so when I stretch the fence across the frame it extends up past the top rail, since I am using 48” steel electric fence post as tension bars to secure each end, the fence wire is stabilized above the top of the frame. Next I attaché the two brackets against the concrete wall, with the gate hinges attached with one “L” pointed up and the other down. That way it will not be possible to just lift the gate off the brackets. The gate hinges are too big for the frame, so I choose a nut to use as a wedge and after tightening the hinges they are secure and do not slip. Now this unusual looking gate extends past the width of our existing gate about a foot over the half balcony wall. This will still allow someone to climb over the wall and gain access. As I am pondering this, Denise suggests using metal hardware cloth and wood. The hardware cloth is made of heavy galvanized wire woven with ½” openings. I use it for a variety of things, from making cages, rat proofing food storage areas, to making drying racks. It is not as heavy as I would like, but it will do until we can raise the money to have something made more substantial. I sent down some 1x2 pine to make window screens with, but the screen I sent down was used to keep chickens out of the nursery. It was stretched haphazardly along the cactus barrier that surrounds most property here. Not a very good use of resources, but it’s too late now. I am going to reclaim the best of it and will replace with chicken wire. Using the 1x2 I made a simple frame to top the half wall and extend to the ceiling, filling the remaining space. Since it is pine it needs to be painted before the hardware cloth is stretched across it. John Louie has been assisting me and he insists on taking over this job. All of this time, Denise has been working with two different women’s groups. One group is working on the looms, preparing to start weaving. The second is the younger women and students making beads for rosaries. Lots of action today. Tonight we are trying something new. We are going to have a movie night. Chris Jones, one of our team members, donated a projector. Our plan is to let the school parents use it for fund raising by having Weekly movies, charging the equivalent of 35 or 40 cents. Tonight is a trial with just a few people invited. We are showing “Madagascar”. It is dubbed in French, some people will understand, finding titles in Creole is a challenge. It rained this afternoon, but now it clearing off. By dusk it is clear, so I set up the projector, laptop, and speakers on the roof of the classrooms. I stretch a sheet on the wall of our apartment and cue everything up. As people arrive, we bring out folding chairs and everyone gets settled, we have a total of eight or ten. The movie starts and everyone is captivated. Even though the language is for the most part beyond them, the plot comes through and everyone is entertained. We even served popcorn. Later as Denise and I discuss it, we realize that for most of those present, they have never seen anything like this. Even though we have watched this movie with our grandchildren many times, we saw it with fresh eyes with the dialogue in French. It has been a fun evening, when I looked up the word “fun” in our translating dictionary it isn’t listed. We shall see about proceeding with movie nights. I can see there are a few things to work out first. Sunday, October 20th A quiet day, church this morning and afterwards several to the children came to see our parrot. They are fascinated, I am sure that this is a first for them. After breakfast and a Sunday nap, I finish our “security” additions. It will not prevent a serious threat, but it will prevent crimes of opportunity. My second Sunday afternoon project is to paint our kitchen. Presently it is battleship grey. I picked up a gallon of paint Friday in Port au Prince and I am ready to lighten the kitchen up a little. The kitchen is tiny and cramped and after a couple of hours all I have managed is to put a coat on two of the walls. It is not very good paint, and painting over grey will take several coats. I am patient, It may take me a while but a little at a time I will see it finished. Kind of like everything we do here, little by little. Saturday October 19th I am not up so early this morning. After breakfast I assemble the parts for adding to our security. The area I am concentrating on is at the top of the stairs that lead to our balcony overlooking the school yard. This is our only entrance door. The balcony is about seven feet wide where the landing meets the half gate for access. I have a tubular gate frame designed for chain link fence, a small piece of chain link fence, six fencing straps, nuts and bolts, some electric fence post, a couple of gate hinges made for the next larger size gate tubing and two handmade brackets that I am going to use to mate up with the gate hinges. Gate hinges clamp around the tubing and have a female socket that rest slips over a pin on the fence half of the hinge. Since I am not attaching the gate to a post, I am using the brackets that were made for shutters. These are 2”x4” metal plates with an “L” shaped piece of steel rod welded to it with four holes drilled in the corners. When the gate is complete the gate part of the hinge will slide over these “L” shaped pieces and allow the gate to swing open. The gate frame is 40’ wide by 68’ tall, but it will serve my purposes better to use it 68” wide by 40” tall. The fence wire I have is 48” tall, so when I stretch the fence across the frame it extends up past the top rail, since I am using 48” steel electric fence post as tension bars to secure each end, the fence wire is stabilized above the top of the frame. Next I attaché the two brackets against the concrete wall, with the gate hinges attached with one “L” pointed up and the other down. That way it will not be possible to just lift the gate off the brackets. The gate hinges are too big for the frame, so I choose a nut to use as a wedge and after tightening the hinges they are secure and do not slip. Now this unusual looking gate extends past the width of our existing gate about a foot over the half balcony wall. This will still allow someone to climb over the wall and gain access. As I am pondering this, Denise suggests using metal hardware cloth and wood. The hardware cloth is made of heavy galvanized wire woven with ½” openings. I use it for a variety of things, from making cages, rat proofing food storage areas, to making drying racks. It is not as heavy as I would like, but it will do until we can raise the money to have something made more substantial. I sent down some 1x2 pine to make window screens with, but the screen I sent down was used to keep chickens out of the nursery. It was stretched haphazardly along the cactus barrier that surrounds most property here. Not a very good use of resources, but it’s too late now. I am going to reclaim the best of it and will replace with chicken wire. Using the 1x2 I made a simple frame to top the half wall and extend to the ceiling, filling the remaining space. Since it is pine it needs to be painted before the hardware cloth is stretched across it. John Louie has been assisting me and he insists on taking over this job. All of this time, Denise has been working with two different women’s groups. One group is working on the looms, preparing to start weaving. The second is the younger women and students making beads for rosaries. Lots of action today. Tonight we are trying something new. We are going to have a movie night. Chris Jones, one of our team members, donated a projector. Our plan is to let the school parents use it for fund raising by having Weekly movies, charging the equivalent of 35 or 40 cents. Tonight is a trial with just a few people invited. We are showing “Madagascar”. It is dubbed in French, some people will understand, finding titles in Creole is a challenge. It rained this afternoon, but now it clearing off. By dusk it is clear, so I set up the projector, laptop, and speakers on the roof of the classrooms. I stretch a sheet on the wall of our apartment and cue everything up. As people arrive, we bring out folding chairs and everyone gets settled, we have a total of eight or ten. The movie starts and everyone is captivated. Even though the language is for the most part beyond them, the plot comes through and everyone is entertained. We even served popcorn. Later as Denise and I discuss it, we realize that for most of those present, they have never seen anything like this. Even though we have watched this movie with our grandchildren many times, we saw it with fresh eyes with the dialogue in French. It has been a fun evening, when I looked up the word “fun” in our translating dictionary it isn’t listed. We shall see about proceeding with movie nights. I can see there are a few things to work out first. Sunday, October 20th A quiet day, church this morning and afterwards several to the children came to see our parrot. They are fascinated, I am sure that this is a first for them. After breakfast and a Sunday nap, I finish our “security” additions. It will not prevent a serious threat, but it will prevent crimes of opportunity. My second Sunday afternoon project is to paint our kitchen. Presently it is battleship grey. I picked up a gallon of paint Friday in Port au Prince and I am ready to lighten the kitchen up a little. The kitchen is tiny and cramped and after a couple of hours all I have managed is to put a coat on two of the walls. It is not very good paint, and painting over grey will take several coats. I am patient, It may take me a while but a little at a time I will see it finished. Kind of like everything we do here, little by little. Bob
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 17:51:08 +0000
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