TOTOLIMA: SUMMER 2014
For photos and videos of our Totolima footbridge, please visit our Gallery.
The full collection of the travel teams' journals can be found on our blog's archive.
To view our newsletters, and read more articles on our project, please visit our publications page.
2014 Project with Totolima community
Our first footbridge was built alongside the Totolima community, in the region of Cochabamba. This community has a river that divides many of the towns' people from the school, the city, roads, and the market. This river experiences extreme flooding during four to five months of the year, and is unsafe to cross. With a footbridge in place, the 600 people in this community will be able to safely cross to access the facilities across the river and to transport their corn and livestock safely over the bridge anytime throughout the year.
The travel team for the Totolima footbridge was Relja Lukić, Arthur Li, Dilan Badshah, Marianne Baucas and Sion Chung.
Photo Journal of the Totolima Summer 2014 trip
The trip to Bolivia was three weeks long, from August 16 to September 6. The team arrived in Totolima on the 18th after a long flight and some driving from Cochabamba.
The view from the plane to Bolivia
The scenery and llamas on the road to Totolima
Upon arriving to Totolima, our team got their first look at the community and the site.
The footbridge site prior to our team's work
Community members outside their homes
Getting right to work with the community members, Clemente (the Bolivian construction manager) and Neil (our acting technical mentor), our team got the cables installed for the footbridge within the first day. The next step was to set the cable sag, and after a bit of back and forth, success!
The cables all saddled up on the towers
Neil, Dilan, Arthur and Marinanne adjusting the sag
In honour of the beautiful country, the footbridge was to wear the national colours of Bolivia, and the crossbeams weren't going prep and paint themselves. After painting them, nailers were attached to each crossbeam for the ultimate installation.
Sion, Relja, Marianne and Dilan painting the beams
The crossbeam and nailers attached
The hangers were then added to the crossbeam-nailers combination and hung on the cables of the footbridge.
The crossbeam-nailer-hanger trio
Marianne and Sion securing the beams
Now the decking starts, the whole span of the bridge was filled with longitudinally running wooden planks, all secured onto the nailers.
Clemente with Neil and Marianne starting the decking
The footbridge decking halfway done
Last forming piece to the footbridge was the side fencing. After tht was placed and secured, our team went to finishing up the aesthetics by painting the fencing to match the crossbeams!
Sion, Dilan and Arthur rolling out the fencing
Dilan, Marianne and Relja with community members painting the fence
The footbridge was completed thanks to the hard work of all those involved: the community, our team and of course Clemente and Neil! Inauguration day was a grand ceremony, complete with handmade appreciation from the community in form of fresh wreaths for our team.
The completed footbridge!
The important pre-inauguration meeting
One of the many signatures taken that day
The ribbon waiting to be cut
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