The boats returning in evening

137 Employees returning to the mainland after a hard days work on Lupita.

Cement bags - a new fashion on Lupita

Bartholomew

The only other resident on the island at the moment is Bartholomew, a huge male baboon. He is very curious of our dogs and cats and hopefully, we will all learn to live with each other.

Grass, grass and more grass!

Bundles and bundles of grass arrive every day at Kipili. The villagers come from far and wide with their boats loaded with grass. This will be used for thatching at a later date.

The grass is loaded onto the "Tumbo" every morning and taken accross to Lupita.

Some days there is so much grass that the "Tumbo" must tow the 2 other boats laden with grass behind it to Lupita. Chris has had to employ an extra 40 guys just to carry the grass from where the boat is moored in the bay to the building site.

What Chris has been up to!

Our first day with the staff on Lupita. There was no pathway, so everyone climbed up the hill carrying the tools for the day; over rocks and through the long grass, keeping a careful watch for snakes.

The first thing to be done was to cut a pathway up the hill from the one side of Lupita where the boat was moored, to the other side, where the staff buildings were to be built. Every spade, hoe, bag of cement, eucalyptus pole etc. has to be first loaded onto the boat in Kipili, then transported to Lupita and then carried up the hill to the building site. This in itself is an enormous task.

After Chris had marked out the positions of the staff buildings, pathways were cut to each building and 6 teams of 12 guys each, started clearing the area and moving all of the smaller rocks.

The Manager's House had to be built with split levels because there were so many large rocks that could not be moved. Literally tons and tons of rocks were carried by the guys on their heads or shoulders to form the foundation of the Manager's House and the other staff buildings.

Then came all the sand and aggregate. The guys carried sand in bags and buckets to the foundation of the Manager's House and the other staff buildings, ready to be compacted. Ladies from the Kipili village came accross to Lupita and broke the medium sized rocks into smaller rocks for the cement work.

All the plumbing for the various buildings went in next. The guys had never done anything like this before and they learnt fast.

Then the stonework could begin. Once the outside walls were built, Chris was ready to start pouring concrete.

The same thing was happening at the other staff buildings.

And then came the concrete. Here one of the teams is starting the concrete work on the Manager's House. The concrete was mixed in the concrete mixer at the end of the line and then passed down from one person to the next to where it was needed at the end of the line. This proved to be very time consuming and so Chris stopped using the concrete mixer and now all the concrete is mixed in wheelbarrows.

After this the wooden framework for the Manager's House started going up.

And then the roof trusses went up. It took 30 guys to help hoist and position each roof truss.

The Manager's House with the roof trusses in place.