Ron had been following the travels of his construction container on a shipping web site. It took a month to get from N. Carolina to LaHavre, a month from LaHavre to Douala. Then it took almost a month to get from Douala to Yaounde. And the last 75 meters took 2 hours!

The long awaited container had finally arrived… but not yet. Rain all night the night before did not help the poor truck get up the small hill inside the school property from the entrance gate to the loading dock Ron had had the guys build.

We knew a crane was coming to lift the 14 I-beams out of the container, and hoped it would be useful in getting the container up the hill. So, Ron started to unload crates that were packed behind the heavy metal.

Though he made several attempts, the guys even laid gravel to help with traction, the container just got more and more stuck. It ended up jack knifed, with the trailer down in the banana grove. So the crane hooked up a cable and pulled it out, then got in front and towed it up the small incline.

I personally didn’t really get how they were going to get 14 I-beams and lots of purlins (more heavy metal, look it up if you don’t know what they are. That’s what I did) out of the container. Then I saw that the roof of the container was canvas. They removed the roof, and hoisted the contents out the top! It took about 8 hours to do that!

Finally the crates at the front of the container were unloaded onto the loading dock, the crane went home, and the guys kept on working.

And shortly after school ended, around 4 pm the container “roof” was replaced and off it went. Going down that little hill empty was much easier for the truck than coming up it had been.

Now the next challenge is going to be dragging those I-beans and purlins over to the construction site, standing them on end to make the skeleton of the covered gym! Stay tuned! I’m just as curious as to how my smart engineer husband is planning to do that too!