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9 months ago, we showed you how scores of men from different city gangs were preparing the base fill for the road to the bridge by hand. Well today, 60 of them were pouring cement for the bridge. Monica Bodden stopped in:..

Monica Bodden reporting
The first big cement pour took place today for the Lake I bridge which will be linking North and Southside's of Belize City.

The 60 workmen were on the job since 9 this morning, and by 2 they were wrapping up the first half of the South Pier.

Cisco Woods - CISCO Contruction
"We've been doing our first big pour for the Lake I bridge. It's a pier, we call it the south pier and this pier is going to support the big beams that will span the river. This particular project is that we are doing everything using very labour intensive method, pouring high quality cement. This bridge is going to be built by Belizeans, design by Belizeans and using all Belizean materials except for the cement and the steel because Belize doesn't produce that. For us it's a special event. We have roughly 60 men out here, some are doing form work but the majority of them are mixing cement and placing it."

The bridge is expected to be completed by December.

Edmund Robateau - Supervisor
"Every day the guys come out with a mind set. We sit down every morning and we plan what to accomplish each day."

Reporter
"Can you give us some logistics? How big the bridge will be - those sort of things."

Edmund Robateau - Supervisor
"The bridge has a width of 46 feet. The two piers have 64 feet across the river and from the pier to teh abutment has about 55 feet."

Cisco Woods - CISCO Contruction
"This bridge will help tremendously the traffic congestion on the Central American Boulevard and the Northern Highway because it will give all motorists an alternative to get to Southside from the north and that's where most of the traffic comes from. After this pouring is completed we have another pier to pour tomorrow and an abutment to pour on Monday. Once those are completed then they start to set in the beams and that will happen after about 10 days of curing of the cement they will be able to place the beams after that then we start working on the deck."

And out of those 60 construction workers, 30 of them hail from one of the biggest gang territories in the city.

Roger Anthony - "Ghost Town" Leader
"We don't really have any degree to do another job, so we could do construction and Mr. Cisco always talk us about that and once any jobs come up we get the job. Once we get the job we are ready to work. This is good for us because it occupies our mind so that we don't think stupidness, we are out here to work and make money to pay our bills. We appreciate it a lot."

Monica Bodden
"It's something that you enjoy?"

Roger Anthony - "Ghost Town" Leader
"Yes we enjoy it a lot. We always talking when we are working and when we go home we talk about it."

And we couldn't miss aspiring Engineer and UB Student - Tichele Solis- who was enjoying her internship on site.

Tichele Solis - UB Student
"it's been a wonderful experience. It's very different to actually be out here other than sitting in the classroom looking at pictures; it brings the pictures actually to life. It's not what I expected. It shows that you have to be on your toes if you want to be an engineer. You have to learn to work with different people, different personalities. If something goes wrong you have to lean to improvise to make everything runs smoothly all the time."

They finished today's pour at 1:15 pm, 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

The bridge should be finished by the end of the year.