Yesterday I went with the Engineers without Borders, Mathis and Donata, plus a civil engineering student, Joseph, to examine a footbridge in the northwest of Rwanda. It is the Engineers without Borders next project. Some engineers will be coming from Germany in September to do maintenance work on the bridge, and we were doing preliminary work: measurements, identification of problems, logistics, to make their work more effective. We had a KIST pick-up truck and a driver from KIST. The bridge is about 30 km south of Musanze (aka Ruhengeri) which is near Volcanoes National Park. That 30 km took about an hour and a half. It is an unpaved washboard road - the surface was volcanic rock and we got thoroughly shaken. Mathis, Donata and Joseph examined the bridge for problems; I numbered sections of the bridge so they could tell the next group exactly where the problems were. I numbered sections from 1 to 39 but I left out 26. I should have used my calculator. Here are a few pictures of the bridge and the surroundings.
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| It's a serious river the bridge crosses |
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| Mathis is measuring the amount of sag when there are people on the bridge |
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| The children from this village must cross the bridge to get to school |
The bridge is missing some boards and sways a great deal. Joseph conducted a meeting with the people in the village; they had much to say about it. They will be very happy to have it repaired.
You know those math people, great at the theoreticals but no good when it comes to the concrete numbers.
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