Poles going in ground for Zulu powerline

March 23 the engineers arrived and immediately started working with their Congolese co-workers to assemble and install the 85 poles for the new 7 miles power line between Karawa mission and the Zulu hydro-electric dam.

Power poles coming down the line

Jon & Drew Coker and Jerry Pennick arrived from Kinshasa March 23 grateful that they had chose to fly Air France and transit Paris the 22nd instead of Brussels.

The 90 poles, 85 for the line and 5 reserves, plus the cross-pieces, insulators, cable and various other pieces had all arrived in Karawa in February by way of Lisala.  The equipment itself was shipped directly from China to Kinshasa.

Assembly team

carrying a pole out for installation

Initially the poles were carried out to where they would be installed.  Each pole weighed around 200 pounds, but due to the length and awkwardness as you can see them used up to 10 people to carry them.

Drew Coker was the man for setting the route.  They had rented a special GPS unit to exactly place the poles along the line they had chosen.  He had a team of men before him cutting down the brush and grass along the route and then he marked the place for each pole.  He completed marking the last pole as the sun was setting their final day at Karawa.

During the 7 days Jon, Drew and Jerry were at Karawa they worked through translators to train the Karawa technical service team how to continue with installation of the rest of the poles.

trench between poles for ground wire

Due to the high concentration of lightning strikes in this area a ground wire was run about 80cm below ground between each pole.  When the cable is strung this wire will be connected to the lightning protection wire at the top of the poles.

Jon and Drew arriving at Karawa after a long day