Measuring, analyzing and building

During the last month we contracted the Technical University of Panama to analyze some soil samples. If we want to build a canopy tower with four floors, we need to know what the physical carrying capacity of the soil is. So one day we had a team come around to drill a hole of about 4.5 meters deep to take soil samples. When they came, I wondered why the scientist had brought two bodyguards. But those guys were not bodyguards, they were the drill operators; the drill is driven by human power. And part of operating the drill is repeatedly lifting and dropping a 60 kg weight to hammer the drill into the soil. So now we know that the carrying capacity varies from 7.5 to 28 ton per square meter. Carrying capacity appears to increase with decreasing water content.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/6d43re2&.src=ph&.tok=phRdvYGBIPA7HAcB

We had already mowed the grass and measured the height differences on the hill where we want to build the tower. But we needed to have more information about surrounding altitudes to decide where to locate the tower. At the moment, most of our treetops are less than two feet high, so the view is the best selling point. Therefore we have to make sure we can look over the next hill to the sea and Cébaco island. So we contacted the university again and arranged for someone to come and measure altitudes etc. on part of our land. And now we have a map of 1.6 ha of our land, scale 1:400. We have sent this map to the architect and are now waiting for a first design.

In the mean time we have found a carpenter in Mariato who can build two wooden ‘ranchos’ for us. Basically this consists of a wooden platform a foot or two above the ground with a thatched roof. The platform is large enough to accommodate a roomy two person tent and a verandah with a hammock. Finding the materials to build these rancho’s is very much like trying to get something done in Mozambique: I was taken by somebody who knew everybody to someone who could certainly get the wood. However, this someone was busy doing something else. But he knew a second someone who could surely help me. This second someone would gladly do it, but his chain saw was broken and he did not know when he would get the spare part. But he had a friend who had a brother in law whose third cousin once removed probably knew someone….etc.
After doing away with following all these intricate family connections, we finally found someone in Arenas who will get us the wood. We have ordered ‘nispero’ (Manilkara zapota) and it will be delivered at the end of February. Getting the 500 palm leaves for the thatch is also not easy, but we have made that the carpenter’s problem. He will contact us as soon as the thatch is ready to be delivered and we will pick it up (that will probably need a few trips between our farm and the pick-up spot, but so be it). In the mean time, we visit the carpenter regularly, he lives along the way to our land, to make sure he is actually doing what he says…