Ice plant

Down in Nargul Umer Gao, we run the Ice plant. It’s a pretty simple setup because, at the end of the day, we are just making frozen water. The building is older, and you can see the wear and tear from the salt air and the constant moisture. Everything is built around the big freezing tanks. It gets very cold inside certain parts of the plant, which is a nice break from the outside heat, but it’s hard work on the hands. We spend the early hours of the morning getting the blocks ready for the trucks that come by. The water has to be just right, and the timing of the freeze is something you only learn by doing it for a long time. The ice has to be thick enough before we can pull it out, otherwise it just shatters and we’ve wasted all that electricity and time. There isn’t much of an office to speak of, just a small space where we keep the logs and take the payments. You won’t find any fancy brochures here. We just have the ice and the tools to move it. Most of the guys here are from the Umer Gao area and we’ve known each other forever. The trucks line up outside, and we load them up as fast as we can so the ice doesn’t melt on the road. It’s noisy and wet work, but people need the ice for their fish or their shops.