Detroit Diesel 6-71 Drops a valve in the Congo

Story by Steve Barrington of Barrington Diesel Club

The Human Story - a thumbnail picture of the Congo

Dropped valve? Ja, well! So what?

• Ja well, I was asked to go and fix it!
• My aim with the story is to contribute:
  • to the store of knowledge on Detroit Diesel 2-Stroke engine problems
  • to provide a current picture of the DRC
• Today is June 13th 2010 this is Steve Barrington writing to you from the Congo.

Before one can go to the Congo

• Step One Vaccinations - you cannot get a visa if your vaccinations are not up to date.
  With Yellow Fever, there is a waiting period, somewhere between 7-10 days before you are considered safe. However the vaccination is valid for ten years, so if you are considering traveling to any country that requires that vaccination get it done early to avoid the waiting period. There seems to be no waiting period with all other vaccinations and you can travel immediately once you've had them.
• Get a visa, I don't think any country is exempt from this requirement.
  Waiting period about 4 days.
• Get tickets, flights are full. If you need to go quickly you'll probably be put on standby.

Day 1 Monday 7th June 2010 - Getting to the mine.

• Too early. My ticket said be at airport 3 hours before takeoff, I obeyed that caveat and found myself in front of the queue by more than an hour.
• Flight time was 9 am, we left about 9.20
• Flying over Zambia, you realize how well watered this country is compared to South Africa. Beginning with the Kariba Dam in the south & ending by crossing the Congo river in the north, with full bodied rivers and their tributaries in between. You can see the mist of the overflow at Kariba's dam wall from the air, as also you can see the wake of some of the boats from the air. Zambia has lots of huge irrigation patches, many of them are circular and green from the air. It looks like Zambia is the bread basket for its neighboring countries.
• Way back over Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has large areas under agriculture & plenty of agricultural patches, I did not see them going up, maybe the route or something was not right for this view. However, I saw no large scale irrigation activity, the huge circles & semi circles of irrigation you see when flying over Zambia.
• Real estate in Lubumbashi. The passenger next to me was a real estate agent from RSA on his way to show investors the wisdom and profitability of buying ground in & around Lubumbashi. This really surprised me, so now, I'll shelve my preconceived ideas of instability and stuff when thinking about the Congo and let history do the talking.
• Lubumbashi International Airport. We arrived at Lubumbashi around 2.30 pm. The airport is in need of lots of maintenance and upgrading. Let's hope a sustained period of peace in the Congo together with a sustained period of good mine production revenue and good governance will bring this about.
• Practical Assistance. The inevitable name-placard holders were waiting for their various charges from the plane, my placard-holder's name was John. We went quickly through passport stamping where a customs official held on to my passport; I thought, 'Oh no, here we go!'. So I told John she had my passport and he went to retrieve it from the official without any problems. John gathered about 15-20 passports in all with great facility and enthusiasm and then went to do the necessary. He also took care of the luggage which I did not see until later in the day after arriving at Kolwezi by connecting flight. He led us to a overcrowded waiting lounge where he somehow got his charges seats, some sharing a table with 3 or 4 complete strangers. He got us free cokes & beagles, thank goodness because I did not see a shop and I was dying of thirst by then. There was one ablution with two toilets for about 80 people, one for the ladies the other for us men. My toilet did not flush.
• Kolwezi Airport. Arrived at Kolwezi at about 4 pm, where I handed in my passport which was retained for processing, it arrived on the mine a couple of days later. I pointed out my luggage to an official who told me to take it & to proceed. So, in my experience, I had no problem with officials, no bribes, etc. Kolwezi airport is a colonial relic, it has one general ablution with two toilets, one for the ladies & one for the gents, but there was no flushing water. Instead of running water there is 'an official' who flushes the toilet with a bucket of water, he asks for tips in $ US to clean your mess. On the way back I was informed that negotiations to upgrade the runway & presumably the terminal also, were under way between the relevant local authorities and the management of Mumi mine.
• Drive to Mumi Mine. From Kolwezi there was about an hours drive in a land cruiser type vehicle to Mumi Mine. Its right-hand drive here, it bombs your mind. The road was gravel & dusty, but otherwise not too bad. I saw one water-truck watering the road on the way. The item of note, was the impressive size of the (I think) Congo River which we crossed on the way to the mine, you don't get upland rivers like that in the RSA! Otherwise the country is under-developed, I saw no live stock, agriculture, wild animals, or industry. A sparse population in the scantiest of habitation inhabits most of the route along the way, which I suppose is dependent on primary or secondary income from the surrounding mines.
• Drive back from Mumi Mine. Going back from the mine I saw a few domestic animals, one dog, one goat, quite a few instances of free range chickens, cocks, and chicks, one small pink pig, two or three instances or a black pig or two, and that's about it as far as the animals are concerned. A lot of charcoal production is evidenced by either a view of a site making charcoal or by the several sales points along the road where it is sold. The locals transport it by bicycle in huge bags, I saw as many as six bags on one bicycle!

Accommodation & food

• I was fortunate enough to be accompanied from Lubumbashi to the mine by an old hand in the Congo. His name is Jerry Burger, he saved me lots of PT, and was most friendly & helpful. He helped me get settled in at a mine's camp which serves as accommodation and offices for the erection of a huge copper smelter currently under way. They hope to begin smelting some copper in August 2010 and avoid sending raw ore to the coast. This they may well do, because the place is well organized and they are obviously well financed & focused on their goals.
• My accommodation is a tent for 4 divided into two sections. I have a section for two to myself. Its on a concrete base and my tent forms a circle of such tents, like a circle of wagons in the western movies. There is no water or fridges in the tents, but there is electricity and an electric fan per tent division. There is a raised ablution tent in the circle that has six each toilets, showers, and basins connected to some type of septic system, which stinks if you are on the wrong side of the wind.
• In time I will upload a few photos, when I can get them from my cell phone to my laptop.
• Mess tents. There are two large mess tents, one is used by the Filipino ex-pats, the other by South African ex-pats, local workers & contract workers. The food is not mother's best. If you get to the mess tent early it is plentiful and, I reckon, par for the course in this type of operation. But come midway between start & finish time they are frequently out of basics like bread, meat & various other items of food. Sometimes you can't get, or must wait for, a knife or a fork or a plate or a cup. Ex-pats sometimes go to get food or other items from the Filipino mess tent.
• Breakfast with little variation from day to day, typically on the menu is:
  • Cereal, or oats of the day - with milk & brown sugar.
  • Omelette wafers & bacon.
  • Sliced cheese & sliced brawn.
  • Bread & marge (yuk!), with strawberry jam if you want.
  • Nescafe or Lipton tea.
• Lunch & Dinner. There is more variation here, but stews are common & sometimes fried or braaied steak or chops. Occasionally tinned fruit salad, once I saw a sponge pudding on offer.

Mine Safety and environment

• Before you set foot on site there is a mandatory safety induction course. The safety officers are Japie & Henning, they boast of an impressive safety record and follow their profession diligently.
• My location on site is about 10 minutes walk from my tent, so something over a kilometer, it is winter now and there is no rain, so we trudge past the plant being erected often in dust that is talcum-powder fine to get to where I must work.
• The hours of work are from 7.00 am in the morning to 6.00 pm at night, with an hours lunch break. Six days a week. Today is Sunday, and I have a chance to write.
• On the way to site I sometimes pass one group of about 150 construction workers in their morning orientation meeting outside the smelter. This is an impressive affair as they are collectively enthusiastic. One morning I passed as a man began singing after the initial orientation. He was singing Yahweh-Yahweh, in Swahili. It was most beautiful, with the circle of workers responding enthusiastically at the right times. It is a distinctive African way of choir singing, with a leader and many choristers. I'm sure they'd give groomed choirs on 'The last choir standing' a run for their money. It brought to my mind Wordsworth's poem 'The Solitary Reaper', such was the powerful but plaintive quality of his voice.
• On another day the same group were enthusiastically responding to the slogan 'Safety!' with a leader punching the air and shouting 'Safety!, the group following all punching the air and yelling 'Safety!' at the tops of their voices.
• I must mention Sebastian, he looks after the site and affairs of Geo Compaction, there was no end to his helpfulness. His mission in life seems to be to help others. He never neglected the small details like making sure I had Coke & bottled water to drink when on site. Anything you wanted, he helped, he even arranged a braai for me before I left. Thanks Sebastian! In the picture you see Sebastian and his crew testing the soil's compaction, this day they were testing down to a depth of 6 meters.
• There are many races and cultures on site. The locals communicate mainly in French & Swahili, they are mostly involved in food, laboring, cleaning & maintenance. There are lots of South Africans who speak Afrikaans, English & a number of indigenous SA languages, they are involved in the construction of the plant and in machine maintenance. There are many Filipino ex-pats who are involved in administration, and building. The races mix freely & are friendly toward one another. The seasoned South African workers get to know & use a stock of popular French & Swahili phrases.
• The winter Climate is relatively mild, no rain and very dusty. Day min temperatures at 13°C, day max temperatures at 29°C. The latter information I got from Google Chrome's weather for Kolwezi. Google offers this and other services with its 'Chrome' for free. I regularly use Google's map and translation services, & there's lots more which I haven't even begun to explore. It is a really good utility.
• One small shop. There is only one small shop here which opens twice a day, close to meal times on weekdays. It opened for an hour on Sunday. They are reluctant to give change, instead they give you vouchers, pieces of paper, which you can use next time. The first time I gave them $100 bill & I got $70 change plus vouchers for about $25. Everything is sold in multiples of 1$, no cents, no small change. So for a Lipton ice tea you pay $2, which is a bit hefty at about R 17.00 compared to about R 7.00 in South Africa. A beer or a cider here is reasonable at $1 a time.
• Internet. At Lubumbashi the internet is free for everyone. I was talking to a local chicken farmer who had a laptop plugged in the waiting lounge at the airport, he was connected to the internet and had no visible modem. He spoke fair English and said he will ask the lady in the office to connect me. So I handed her my laptop & she did just that, to my surprise I was also connected without a modem. At the mine Senet, the main contractor erecting the smelter, have a wifi service. Anthony, a Filipino office worker here, got me connected also for free. I can receive emails from all my email addresses, but so far I can't send.

Bafana-Bafana & the world soccer cup.

• Friday June 11th - Kick off 4.00 pm All the South Africans were excited and wanted to watch the game. There are only two or three TV sets on site, so I don't know how they all managed to watch the game. Our crew worked an hour late one day and an hour early another to make up for knocking off at 4.00 pm on Friday, but were still told to proceed to the TV point surreptitiously, one by one, as if going to the toilet, which is of course more than a kilometer away.
• Vuvuzelas. A vuvuzela is trumpet type instrument, made of plastic, which makes a distinctive noise associated with South African soccer crowds. Where that name originated I've no idea, I was phoning home at the time, & I asked Adelaide, my wife, to check the TV and tell me what the score was. At that instant Bafana-Bafana scored. I heard the vuvuzelas from South Africa on my cell phone, and locally here in the Congo simultaneously. The game ended in a one all draw, which though not the ideal result, still keeps Bafana-Bafana in the cup. Some South African soccer fans here can mimic the sound of a vuvuzela quite accurately.
• In South Africa Many companies closed at 12.00 pm on Friday. I happened to be on the phone with Jonty Gluckman the MD of Mafika Engineering, on whose behalf I'm here in the Congo, at about that time. He said the excitement between his workers was such that he felt he had to let them go early.

Congo logistics.

• Machine failures in remote areas are 10 times the problem compared to engine failures in developed areas. e.g. here in the Congo, all being well, it takes 7-10 days to send any parts by road from South Africa. You have border problems, transport problems, distance, red tape, and various local authorities en route who stop vehicles for inspections.
• Malaria in the Congo is a real problem. Many people on site have had it, some repeatedly. The mine supplies you with repellants & insecticides. Its a good idea to get anti-malaria tablets before traveling. Drivers en route, & local residents may not have any protection.