6.5.08

Wow, backtrack a few days… arc welding. I conceived-up a project for myself to weld a frame with a bar so I can build upper body strength with pull-ups etc. On the way toward the main road in Koforidua are a number of small metal-working shops. Mostly welding gates, security grates for windows and small shop containers for local sellers to sell and lock their goods at night. I had been passing this particular shop since my first day in Koforidua and making friends with the workers. The way the shop is organized is with a master at the top and then a hierarchy of apprentices successively below, ranging in age from 28 to 16. The more experienced apprentices do most of the skilled work, with the others observing and doing more of the brunt work. One of the young guys was making a chain out of iron rod-

At first, the workers didn’t entirely trust me. We were friendly and joking, but there was a tension. This tension is normal when your carrying more money in your pocket than people make in a month with all of their hard and sometimes dangerous work. I tried to let go of these differences entirely, but the workers wouldn’t entirely let them go. A typical case of the privileged wanting peace and ignoring justice. I accept.

The arc-welding machine is homemade, wild. Metal plates wrapped with bundles of wire in a crate, connected to the electricity line with exposed copper wire. The cables – short pieces with exposed tips twisted together to provide length. The electrode a metal stick coated in flux held in the electrode clamp. No regulating electricity, just scratching the electrode to get a current and then welding down a quarter inch at a time.

I went with one of the guys, Malek, a natural friend of mine, to the market to buy square stock and pipe for the horizontal bar. We select the materials, cut them down to fit them into the taxi, and then back to the workshop. We mark, cut, tack weld, square and then weld. I’m doing my best to use the #10 lens while observing and welding. Its tricky – the other guys I’m welding with have no eye protection. They told me they know how to protect their eyes. This included blinking strategically when the weld light is greatest. One of the other welders working on a different project has 80’s wrap-around sunglasses – hardly protection. I’m feeling the effect of the light on my own eyes, and I’m sadly wondering how many of these guys are going to have eyesight in 20 years. Is it something that they just accept or ignore for survival – the fact that they are damaging their eyes? I get home a bit tired, my own eyes feeling dry and deep, I bath and sleep.