Day 1

The construction team has landed! The Traylor builders finally made it in last night (Friday 9/30) with the rest of the team coming together tonight to complete the group. We are spending our first nights in Kigali, a city of more than a million inhabitants and the capitol of Rwanda. Rwanda is a country of nearly 13 million people located in the Great Rift Valley of central africa. It’s currently the second rainy season here, where storms can strike quickly and intensely.

The team spent the day exploring the city of Kigali, including the Central Business District and the Rwandan Genocide Museum. Tomorrow morning we’ll pile into the cars and begin our 5 hour journey to the bridge site!

Day 2

The team has made it to the bridge site! We spent the day driving through the Rwandan countryside on our way from Kigali to the site of the bridge. We’re ready to hit the ground running tomorrow!

Day 3

The team woke up early and was at the bridge site by 6am. This bridge at 150 meters is the longest B2P has ever done so the team was divided into Left side and Right side teams. Even though both sides had challenges of their own progress was made!

Day 5

Today was a big day for the right side! We lifted the tower into place and are ready to run cables. Not to worry though the left side will have their tower up first thing tomorrow and the team will begin pulling cables shortly after. We also had fun with some of the local children today and taking Polaroid pictures. A nice wrap up for day 5!

Day 6

It’s been a big day in Cyrarera! The right side team spent this morning raising and securing their tower to the scaffold.

We crossed the three upstream main cables from the left bank to the right and secured them all to the top of the towers.

Hard rain storms came in the afternoon and the right team had to leave early. But the left side waited it out until we could work on lifting our cables up out of the river

Day 7

Today was a beautiful day at the bridge site. The morning was cool but heated by mid day. Sunscreen and electrolytes have been out friends all week.

Today we crossed the three remaining cables from the left to right banks and secured them to the anchors. The sag has been set on the upstream cables and after more winching tomorrow the downstream side will follow.

At tea today Ange made us delicious savory crepes and we had potatoes wedges and a vegetable stew at lunch. At the end of the day Sara took the soccer ball down to the field and an impromptu game broke out. Smiles were had be everyone!

Day 9

A warm but beautiful Sunday here in Rwanda. Today teams on both sides of the bridge hung swings all day. It’s starting to look like a bridge! During break we had warm tortillas and if you were up on the scaffold you may have got yours delivered to you. Dinner was goat skewers with rice and veggie stew and potatoes.

Day 10

Rise and shine! it’s Monday in Rwanda and also decking day. For breakfast this morning they made potato samosas which are a fan favorite and we were happy to see them at break too. Both side crushed decking and are almost connected in the middle!

Day 11

Connected at Last! Today the left and right sides are finally connected! We placed the final suspenders and set the remaining decking panels to connect the two sides. We pulled the first wind guy cable across and are working on getting everything hooked up but for now the bridge is still suspended in the air

Days 12 & 13

We finished the last two days of the build in a mad dash to complete the finishing details of the project. We installed 2″ steel conduit pipes to help stiffen up the bridge deck, finalized the wind ties and we placed the hand rail and permanent fencing to finally make the bridge safe. 

Days 14

The bridge is finally open! Locals, officials and the community members that maintain the bridge gathered this morning to celebrate the bridge opening and thank everyone for their hard work and dedication to complete the bridge on time!

We’d like to thank everyone at home who help us come to Rwanda and be a part of this bridge build. Bridges to Prosperity will spend another week or so onsite wrapping up and punching out some small items before moving on to their next build.