Cement, Electricity and Books!
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 06/Apr/2010 15:05, 34 days ago
Cement and Electricity are intrinsically linked it seems. I hadn’t quite appreciated it before but cement factories need electricity to run. When Ethiopia started running short of electricity last year the price of cement sky rocketed. When the new Dam was being built in order to provide more electricity in the form of HEP prices started to fall. When the Dam finally opened cement factories were advertising‘sales’ and encouraging more order. Then, after two weeks, the Dam broke and power shortages were again an issue... back up went the price of cement. This has caused big problems for the construction industry and I’m sure must account for some of the half finished buildings you see everywhere that seem to now be abandoned. This issue is also affecting me...or rather the primary school library project I am trying to oversee. When I wrote the proposal requesting funding for the project the price of cement was reasonably low. However, soon after building work began it rose out of our price range. The builder has been quite resourceful and found cheaper ways of paving the floor, however, the outside of the building is still standing quite bare and bumpy with just a spattering of cement on it. It should be a beautiful smooth cement wall ready for painting. I now need to decide whether to use up some of the money earmarked for books and furniture to cement the outside wall or leave it as it is. It is not just for aesthetic reasons that we wanted to cement the wall (a cement wall should protect the books inside from the elements much better than a mud one), however, if we do cement the wall there will be significantly less books to protect inside the library! Hmmm... I guess my best hope is that they fix the Hydroelectric Dam quick smart!