Hard Hats, Coveralls and Design Build

I was driving by the Corps of Engineers work site yesterday and noticed something different about the work crew. They were all wearing hard hats and had the same outfits on. After looking a little closer, I saw that they all had closed toe shoes on as well, no open sandals like we usually see. When I was talking to the site supervisor, he said the Corps did not like their normal work clothes and shoes (man jammies and sandals).

I told the guy I was with, we need to stop and take a picture of this. When we stopped and took the camera's out the crew stopped work and began striking poses. They seemed to be pretty proud of their new uniforms, is what I thought. But, then after we got done taking the pictures they asked us if they could have copies of the pictures.

These guys stayed on the work site and let us take their picture. The two below stepped out into the road, which I thought was because they did not want to be in the pictures. Then I started to put my camera away and he started saying something in Pashto, I finally figured out he wanted his picture taken too. He didn't want to be with the rest of the group. The holes you see are for the building footings, they are all dug by hand with picks and shovels, no backhoes like you see in the states.

When we returned to the jobsite today, they wanted us to take more pictures. They wanted me to be in the picture with them. They were also disappointed the pictures we gave them were not in color, we don't have color printer in the office.

The Army Corps is building offices and living quarters, as they will be working in the local area building reconstruction projects for the Afghan people. This project was let as a design-build project for an Afghan contractor to complete, which means the contractor designs and begins building it while the design is being finished. The mission of the corps is to teach the local contractors US methods of construction. They also intend to have the Afghan contractor complete all the work, including the electrical and plumbing, which is usually done by US contractors on our projects, as the Afghans don't have much, if any, experience with US standard electrical or plumbing.

The Corps awarded the contract in January with a May 20 completion date. Quite an optimistic schedule, based on my three month experience with Afghan contractors. First thing the contractor did was stop by our office and ask for our standard design for the brick and mortars they have built on the base for us. They used these plans to turn in to the Corps for their 35% design submittal. This only took the first two months of the contract to complete and the Corps finally gave approval to break ground for the footings and slabs last week. I don't think they will meet the May 20 completion date. The Corps is still optimistic they will be in by the end of summer. My money is on the end of the year, and that is a maybe.