Anaconda in the Desert

As the trial hole works progressed, more and more instances of previously undocumented services were found laying around. What made it worse was that nobody seemed to know whether some of these service lines were still needed or alive. We had at one corner of the plot a set of three cable wires each of 100mm in diameter. The original single trial pit had then became a long meandering trench zig-zagging in and out of the plot towards another corner. These set cables suddenly made an abrupt 90 degree turn outside then disappeared under the service road. At times they looked like Anacondas slithering through the sands. With the actual work program seemed to have gone haywire, we have to think of something fast to make this 'landmine' hunting exercise ends or pray for miracles that we be granted extension of time. The latter came in the form of a Substation.

Trial Pits

One thing peculiar that I encountered here is the excessive use of Trial Pits terminology. Here we were, armed with the latest utility services drawing supplied by the Local Services Utility Provider themselves showing the 'supposedly' locations of buried cables, pipes, fibre optics and others, about to start excavating the site, when Trial Pits requirement came a flying from everywhere!
We have to manually do 'blind' diggings around the sites to satisfy ourselves that no other 'unrecorded' service lines within the area. Imagine having to explain the scope of work to few groups of 4 labors each with shovels and carts, who could barely understand what you are talking about, that they have to dig at random locations to an undetermined depth hoping to find something that closely resemble cables, pipes or any suspicous looking wires. And all that in the blistering hot July/August sun.
Towards the end, the site looked like a mortar shelled battlefield of European front during the WW1. Some so called trial-pits resembled the trench and one would be excused in expecting to see soldiers still fixing their bayonets in between bomb shellings.
Remember the scenes in All Quite In the Western Front or the scene in Twelve Monkeys when Bruce Willis was wrongly transported back.

We've Got Cables?

We found 33kVa cables along the outer perimeter of the hoarding. Due to the delicate nature of the situation, and on insistence of the Local Utility Authority, we had to manually excavate the entire stretch of cable routing and shift them further away from the plot line.
Luckily the the excavation was through desert sand material. But the sides were easily collapsible. From time to time we had laborers walked thru the excavated stretch carrying buckets of water and sprinkled the sides to keep the wall from drying up and crumbling down.

The situation got worst due to the proximity of the existing irrigation pipes that sprinkle water at set interval throughout the day thus further loosing the surrounding soil composition.

Watery Holes

In order to secure the site, we have to construct the perimeter hoarding. In this case the hoarding required were of 20mm thick marine plywood. But look at the footing, a chunk of 450 x 450 x 350 mass concrete!! Designed to withstand windspeed up to 160km/h - more like a sandstorm to me. Well since the site is in a former desert only a few years back.

The pics below is another unexpected occurrence. We hit a water pothole at a corner only after digging a few feet down. The water is cooling but the source is baffling. We were given the field data indicating water table at minus 3.5 meter.
A few hours later the answer came in a form of few green men (literally!) These were the guys from the Municipality, ever ready to give us tickets for minor transgression in disturbing greenery around town such as unplugging the grass, uprooting trees, and as in our case, hitting their irrigation pipes.
Blame it on the workers who keep digging in the hot sun.

The Work Commenced

This pics was taken back in May whn we are about to start hoarding the construction site. Its in a busier district of older Dubai, on a direct approach path of airplanes into DBX aiport.
The good thing about this site is that its within walking distance of basic amenities and shopping. Not forgetting to mention in the vacinity of the Traders Hotel where most of asian flight crews come to stay for.

Adaptability

I think from now on I will write on my current activities. This will get me going with my writing skills rather than waiting for some kind of idea explosions that warranted me to write. Not with my current apparent mental block due to workload and other insignificant mentions and distractions.
For start I will write about the construction activities at the site I am at now, so for those who are into construction could take a few pondering or two. Like what I have mentioned to a group of Malaysian media personnel come a visiting a few weeks ago, I have to re-learn and to some degree un-learn some of the construction practices back home. When in Rome do as the Romans do. Or more aptly in Malay idiomatic expression - Masuk Kandang Kambing Mengebek, Masuk Kandang Kerbau Menguak.

Ramadan Kareem