How to NOT chop down trees...
on Jason and Anna in Mbarara (Uganda), 23/Apr/2010 08:17, 34 days ago
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Many people believe that our lives in Mbarara are simple and uneventful. Thankfully we have a number of people in the locality who sympathise and strive to provide us with entertainment.Today it was the turn of our friendly lumberjacks, who decided to chop down all of the big trees in the compound. Indeed this is a complex task, there are a lot of houses, telephone lines and power cables.This of course did not worry our intrepid lumberjacks who thought that ransacking the compound was a great days work. Other people in the compound found the events so interesting they neglected work, made a cuppa and proceeded to watch the man with his chainsaw and rope, climb trees, hack at them from above and saw them until collapse in a "controlled" manner. This meant that the power lines at one end of the compound were felled, plus the phone lines and finally one tree fell on top of the security guards hut. Thankfully the hut (with Ascari inside), survived the impact...Arriving home at lunch time, I had to climb over the newly created assault course (even though maybe the place should have been cordoned). Following lunch I took up my grandstand seat in my office as I knew it was soon time for the big trees near the guest houses.As can be seen from the picture below, we had an electricity pole outside our flat, which passes by the guest houses:Now felling trees in close proximity to power cables in dangerous, and most of the time you would expect whoever is felling them to maybe take the cables down. Indeed this did happen and fast as two trees took out three electricity poles and also nearly smashed the guest houses into tiny pieces too.Tree and cables after the fellingOur electricity poleThe event was very entertaining to watch, although I did stop laughing when I realised we could be without power for days on end!!! I was also concerned for Anna's safety as she was at home and they were felling trees near the flats. Thankfully they missed but from the photo below you can see why we were a little worried...Thankfully we only suffered two days power loss but and we were entertained for a few hours by these calamities....
