Tuesday & Wednesday, August 2
& 3, 2016
We departed for Freetown with
Jonathan driving his car; along with him was Amarachi, Jr., John Blackie’s
daughter that he was returning to her home after her visit. Yesterday when we drove for 7 hours back and
forth from Kailahun with little Jimmy who is not quite 3 years old, he hardly
made a peep. Today as we drove the 5
hours back to Freetown, we didn’t hear from this 5-year-old girl either. I tell you, they make sure that these kids
behave. It is amazing. And both times no one said anything to either
one of them—they were just good!
We are back in the
hotel that makes me happy, arriving about 2:30 PM. We dropped Jonathan & the little girl off
at an area that is closer to where he is staying, with John Blackie. They were to meet up with us the next day,
Wednesday, because we are located too far apart for convenience, so it was
decided that we would keep the car.
Jonathan was not feeling well so Jim ended up driving most of the
way. It takes 3 hours on a convenient
highway, and then 2 more hours of slower going once you get closer to Freetown.
Sunset in Freetown,
from our balcony.
This road used
to be great and now it is awful; we are all creeping along. They are fixing lots of roads while others
deteriorate. Luckily there are many
better ones over all.
This is typical of what
they are working on. They are widening
lots of roads and will put in drainage, then add tops over them for those that
are walking. It is making a huge
difference—getting rid of the mud and/or dirt.
As soon as we got here I did some
washing. There is only a limited amount
of space to hang it up, but this room is on the 3rd floor and has a
balcony that doesn’t face the parking lot, so I didn’t feel guilty putting out
my wash.
Wednesday we had a meeting with
the German NGO directors (Welt Hunger Hilfe) that Brother Bunduka works for.
Jonathan was supposed to come with us but instead went to the hospital—he had
malaria. We shouldn’t be too surprised
since he had a headache when we went to Kailahun, and then the next day felt
sick enough not to be able to drive and had fairly lost his appetite. There are a lot of mosquitoes out right
now.
We drove to the mission office
and there met with Don Carley, who had other obligations, but told him about
replacing the stolen pumps. He also
thought it was a great idea for an area project—a small amount of money to make
three wells work again in areas that they were sustaining them till they were
stolen. And we’ll add a better security
jacket.
Lahai Ensah Bunduka showed up
about 9:30; we followed him to the German NGO office. After meeting with the directors Ursula and
Manfred, we told them what we did and we discussed with them what they do,
which, like us, is a variety of humanitarian projects. We did like their approach, knowing that what
worked in one area or country did not work in another. I have to say that I enjoyed telling Bunduka
about our 80% working wells in Kenema City that we did in 2009. He was very surprised because earlier he felt
that unless you were a local person such as himself, nothing much would
work. 60% working after a couple of
years is the normal, across the board percentage for all NGO’s to feel somewhat
successful. He said quickly that other
NGO’s must have come to fix the wells, but it appeared that this was not the
case in Kenema City. The wells where
UNICEF painted their logo all over our wells in the Kenema District, we didn’t
worry about, discovering that they came and fixed the wells, painted their
signs on our walls, then they worked for a minute and broke right away, so why
not leave their logo on those broken wells!
Anyway, it made me happy to tell him that we had some success after all!
They, like all of us, have to
discover what will work. They, like us,
sometimes stumble upon what does. We
discussed how hard it is to collect money to use a latrine or to pay for water
by the bucket. They saw one kiosk in a
market place that had one solar panel attached to their shop where people could
come and charge up their phones. While
there, they could sell a little bit of food; while there they could purchase
clean water; they had a small latrine, and while waiting for their phone to be
charged up, they just might also pay to use the latrine. We don’t mind, for instance, if the community
does not fix the well but the person whose property it is on decides to fix it
and then charges others to use the water.
It is fair. They fix it, then
others can pay for their bucket, or not use the water. This sounds like a private enterprise, but
that’s okay. The well is still being
used and people are still paying to keep it going, one way or another, and one
household has a way of making a small living.
After our visit we
followed Bunduka to their workshop. It
took a little over an hour to get there, which we didn’t realize, so at first
we were not happy, but it ended up being worth seeing. They, along with three other NGO’s (Household
Water, Emas, & Fur Sierra Leone) built the building for the workshops,
training areas, offices, boardroom, and places for 15 people to stay there
while being trained. We really liked their
ideas. They use a very simple pump made
with local materials, if you just want to pump water from a short
distance. They also had samples of
several non-smelling latrines (for one person at a time) and one-person showers
that would be cheap to put into villages or on someone’s private land. They bring people there for the training, and
send them on their way and then train others.
They are still developing the area and will add farming and other things
to what they are doing.
The workshop training
center on the outskirts of Waterloo.
Afterwards we came
back to the hotel to work on reports and for me to do more wash. It was a good day!
Two latrines and two
showers for one person, or for one family to use. The toilets did not smell and had clean-out
capabilities. The showers were simple,
and they had a way of cleaning water for washing with sand inside polyester
fabric to remove the bad elements in the water.
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