Field Trip

By Emmanuel Jacobs and Lee Flomo

On the third of November 2015 Emmanuel M. Jacobs and Lee Flomo was sent to a client's (a mining company) camp in Grand Gedeh County by NATC’S Head of Operations Mr Haresh Karamchandani to uninstall the V-SAT dish there and to bring other items to Monrovia. 

We took off at 9:30am the next day which was November 4 but spent the night in Toe’s town because the road was clotted with mud and there were lots of vehicles on the way. We took off for Zwedru the next morning but reached late in the evening because of the distance and bad road conditions. We therefore slept in Zwedru and headed for the camp which is located in Tiamas Town lower Grand Gedeh County the next day. We reached later that afternoon and started our job. 

Taking down the dish was no easy task so we had to hire some young men to help us in the process. We firstly disconnected the dish from the pole by removing the screws and then took down the dish. We then removed the BUC unit and traced the cable from the V-SAT to the server’s room and removed it. The most difficult part was getting down the pole. We first tried breaking apart the concrete which held the pole not knowing it was planted over ten feet into the ground. We broke our hammer and we finally decided to cut down the pole using a welding machine. We finally managed to get down the pole. 

We packed the V-SAT and other things on a pickup to be taken to Zwedru later that evening. We then packed the other things to be taken to Monrovia the next day. Emmanuel and Mr. Cooper headed to Zwedru with the V-SAT but I had to take public transport because there were only space for two. The dish was however taken back to Zwedru upon instructions from Mr. Haresh to be taken to Cestos the next day.

On November 7 2015 we picked up the V-SAT and other things (switches, printer etc.) from Putu and headed on to Cestos via public transport (chartered pick up) to deliver the V-SAT at another client site and bring the other things to Monrovia. 

Because of the road condition we didn’t reached Cestos until 7:16 pm. The security at the site said he couldn’t receive the V-SAT because it was too late so we had to spend the night in Cestos. The V-SAT was delivered  early the next morning and we took off for Monrovia on this day which was November 8. 

There were a lot of obstacles on our way to Monrovia. Many times we got stuck in the mud and had to push the car on which we were riding. There were also times when we had over 50 vehicles caught in the mud and we had to wait until they are removed. These and other reasons resulted in us spending another day in a town called Yarpah’s town. Early the next morning we took off and through God’s help we reached Monrovia at about 4pm that afternoon.