Thursday was a fairly uneventful day. We arrived in the morning and discovered the planer tech was on vacation out of the district, and wouldn't be available. However, Ato, the shop foreman, suggested we take our blueprints and raw stock to the campus carpentry shop -- which normally concerns themselves with the day-to-day carpentry needs of the school, such as cabinets, bed-frames, and the like. While communication was a challenge, we were able to meet it, and the craftsmen there were willing to take a few minutes to help the confused white folk. Not wishing to ask too much, we had them mill one set of components, enough to complete one machine. By the time we'd finished all this, Aimee's infallible Lunch Break Tummy Clock indicated that it was indeed closing time at the shop, and we wrapped things up for the day.
This morning, emboldened by what passes for a Spanish Omelette here at the Guest House, we returned to the machine shop to assemble a machine. While I was too busy worrying and working to take many photographs, Aimee carefully documented the entire assembly process, and is in the midst of doing important things with those pictures. Apart from a few minor snags, the machine went together without a hitch. Jorge Appiah, whose name I've been misspelling for a few days now, stopped by around noon to critique our design -- as management must always descend upon engineers during the critical stage of any project.
Fortunately, by closing/lunch time, Aimee, Phillip, an Oxford Comma, and I had finished the first machine, and addressed many of Jorge's concerns -- most of which had to do with security and the risks of Ghana, which he does understand far better than we do. Some of his notes we've incorporated into our future revisions list, and others we enacted directly on this first model, which we understand will be mounted in a safe and secure location inside Helena Afriyie-Siaw's HIV clinic here in Kumasi.
The reaction from Jorge and our Ghanaian cohorts to the completed system was nothing short of jubilation, everyone is quite pleased -- dare I say astounded -- by the device. Phillip is keenly interested in continuing development of the system after our departure, and I gave him a set of blueprints today that I think will go to great use. Jorge believes that local technicians can reverse-engineer, simplify, and replicate the Beaver Coin Mechanism we're currently using, and intends to take a coin mechanism to show a few acquaintances on Monday. We've contacted Helena to arrange purchase of condoms in bulk (144 for 5 Cedis, at an exchange rate of $0.29 to the Cedi -- it's a rough economy here). Our current plan is to pick up 1,440 condoms on Monday, and test this machine extensively then. Assuming all doesn't go well and we can fix it within a day or so, we'll have this machine installed in the Clinic early next week, and the remaining two machines completed around the same time. I'm very much looking forward to demonstrating this, ahem, fully operational battle station to everyone; albeit a bit less so to explaining the inevitable malfunction upon demonstration.
Here's to the first Ghanaian coin-operated vending machine!
No comments:
Post a Comment