Hard work, hard life for dam builders

Chinese-built hydroelectric project to be a boon for Ethiopia, but conditions are a challenge

Workers at China Gezhouba Group say that while they are happy to take a shower after a hard day's work near Negele, a town in southern Ethiopia, it doesn't always make them feel clean and comfortable.

That's because the river water they use, despite their now having a purification system, can be cloudy during the rainy season.

The water is a lot better, however, than during the first two years after they started the GD-3 hydropower project on the Genale River in 2011, they say. They have bottled water for drinking.

"We had no water purification equipment then and had to use the muddy river water," recalls Zhang Shiyun, a project manager for China Gezhouba Group Project Management Co.

The company spent 7 million yuan ($1.1 million; 953,000 euros) buying water purification equipment, but the water in the rainy parts of the year, mainly in April, May and October, can still be somewhat turbid after treatment.

The company has established a water supply point to serve residents around the construction site without charge and also donates water to a primary school once a week, he says. The school used to be part of the company's camp and was donated to the school after they moved on.

Workers are facing other challenges as well. Working deep in the bush and connected with Negele by an unpaved road of about 40 kilometers, they are isolated from the outside world not only by distance, but also the limited access to internet and phone signals. Negele is more than 600 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, the capital.

Internet speeds are extremely slow and unable to support WeChat, China's biggest social networking application.

Workers can use the internet only when it's not needed for business communications. "To ensure smooth communication with headquarters, we open access only after work, " says Wang Shizhong, a company spokesman at the construction site.

At first, there was no phone signal at all at the construction site. Four signal towers were erected last year, but they stopped working consistently after two months because of the unreliable power supply. The camp is in the Negele area close to the construction site.

"To communicate with headquarters or call my family, I sometimes have to drive an hour and a half to Negele," says Liu Xiaojun, who is in charge of dam construction.

"It's a little bit boring," says Wang Yabin, a tunnel digging machine operator. "We can call our families with a mobile app, but it has to be done either early or late to avoid traffic. I work on the early shift and can make calls around 6 am."

Wang Yabin and his coworkers, most of whom were born in the 1990s, have to cover work at the tunnel construction site 24 hours a day in three shifts to ensure they meet their deadline to complete a 10.4-kilometer tunnel. The tunnel, 8.1 meters in diameter, will take water to the turbo generator.

It takes more than 40 minutes for the workers to arrive at the construction site, and their travel time will increase as the tunnel progresses. The workers on each shift have to alternate mealtimes as the boring machine needs constant attention. The temperature in the tunnel reaches 38 to 40 C.

There are 504 Chinese, 18 of which are women, working with 1,056 Ethiopians. Though they have been working in the country for years, few have had the chance to visit Addis Ababa. They are allowed a one-month vacation in China every year, Zhang says. Workers usually rest one day a month, when they go to town to buy daily necessities, Wang Shizhong says.

Transportation and communications problems also hinder the project.

Some construction materials, equipment and spare parts used in the project must be imported, then usually transported from the capital by truck, a three-day trip to the construction site, Zhang says.

"Because of poor communications, we may fail to communicate with headquarters in time, thus sometimes progress is affected," he adds.

One truck with diesel for power generation and at least one cement truck leave Addis Ababa every day for the construction site. During the heaviest construction, there are four cement trucks a day.

"All plans have to be made half a year earlier as it takes four to five months for the goods to arrive by sea and it takes around one month by air," says Jiang Weican, project site manager.

Jiang says Ethiopian workers are trained before they start working, and skilled and experienced Chinese workers also teach them on the job. About 50 Ethiopian workers will go to China to be taught how to run and maintain the power station, according to the company's contract with the Ethiopian government.

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/27/2016 page25)