That's 1 short straw less for the rest of us to worry about. The Copperbelt is rough, full stop. There were some good fabricators around Kitwe & some just might still be alive.

A mate of mine did some crane work using Oz standards & the locals wouldn't accept them. French Canadian Standards might be in North American Units so you'd gain nothing there. If the DIN is close to SABS then it all points to SABS doen't it? They are better standards anyway. I remember when the BSI flanges were metricated some clowns had specified non-prefered fasteners for the most popular larger sized piping.

There is also a South African Steel Construction Association Handbook, the Blue Book, (why are they all blue?) which would be very handy/indispensable.

I can't speak for the francophile business but in Northern Rhodesia, when most of that development took place, the bedrock of the conveyor design used Anglo American Standards.

There is an excellent DO in Mufilira & the one at Kitwe isn't bad either & you could find most of your Standards there.

If you've been told to work to standards that don't exist it tells you you're out on a limb. For a reality check limbs get severed quite regularly along the Pedicle. ZCCM vehicles were regularly stolen, even outside the clubhouse, at gunpoint & driven over to Congo. When the numbers got big enough the authorities arranged for their return. On the way back through the Pedicle the Congolese army, who live off the land, hijacked the lot .

Congolese Simba beer is very strong & malty. Better stick to Mosi which is a Zambian Heineken; But watch the first Mosi because it can be sour, so send it back. You can also buy emeralds on the sly but you should know how to distinguish them from the traffic light lenses. The local people are clever & can repair anything. New parts were rare. Since the acceptance of the new RSA I expect things have improved since I was there; but they had a long way to go!

I did some work to develop a bypass route to the reverbs through a TORCO plant. There had been a large bin in the roof which had clogged up solid. The bin walls had been taken away for another job but you could see where it had been because the

solidified contents were still hanging, in one piece, about 25m in the roof steel !!

Despite the roughness & isolation I miss it. The original plants were Quality. ■