Thursday, April 19, 2018
Today was as billed, a shorter day,
an easier day. We stopped by a newly
completed clean water pipeline project to a school, which was also to be shared
with the community. This means that the city water is piped into a
fetching point and it has a shutoff valve so as to control it. A latrine for the school was also constructed. It is right off of one of the main roads. It was working just fine, but we found out
that they are not charging for their water and just using school fees when the
government comes to collect. They
decided to charge $60 a month since the government has not hooked up the meter,
which was part of the project and already paid for months ago. The school master did not seem to care, but
if the water usage is less, it would be better to have a meter, but they’ll
never know. The fact that he is not
collecting money from anyone tells us that the community development did not
‘take.’ The principal of the school did
not seem to care either way. When we
looked at the latrine though we could see that it was not only beautifully
constructed but it was also incredibly clean.
I saw a young man come out, get his water and go back in to properly
flush. One man was in charge of it. We will probably send a hygiene trainer back
in to fix the management and choose a person to pay to keep the water properly
cared for.
The front
and back side of the water collection point, using city water at Rocema School.
Below: The very clean and
beautifully constructed latrine. Note
the buckets on each side in the front, which are for washing the latrine after
use. They also brought a bucket filled
with water with taps on it so that the children can wash their hands after
using the toilet facilities. It wasn’t
there when we arrived so they ran and got it—we surprised them. This is part of last year’s project. There is still quite a bit more to do to
finish up all the projects begun last year.
This is a primary and secondary school.
We saw lots of kids at play when we arrived—obviously it was recess
time.
We stopped by an area that we
have worked in before. It has a large
population and is divided into what they call ‘blocks’. There are 5 blocks and
they identify them by A, B, C, etc. even though they also have names. Some of these sections have more than 1,000
people living there. They have some clean water, but mostly dip wells used for
bathing and washing clothes. They have
two areas that have smaller populations, one has 175 and another 200, but they
are the most needy as they have no clean water and have to get to the other
blocks to fetch it. One of the areas is
called Victoria Island. It is not really
an island per se, but when I saw how to get there I understood why it is called
an island. It starts out as a nice
walking path lined with sand bags on both sides. This eventually turns into wood planks with
nothing to hold onto as it goes over a large body of water. It is a river that gets sea water washing
into it and it is ugly dirty. Without
sides I became a bit apprehensive so on the way back I held Jim’s hand and that
was better. It went from a dirt path to
wide boards, 3 of them, down to 2 boards and some of them wobbly and
rotting. I was anxious to get back over
them before it started to rain hard as it began sprinkling. Of course, everyone that lives there runs
over it like it was nothing. It is not
that far down to the water, perhaps 5 feet, but I worried that I’d panic and
lose my balance and fall into the filthy water.
It is not deep, probably waist high, but it was very filthy. Yuck! OK, what a wimp I am…
This is the more
stable part of the foot bridge—I really got nervous when it got down to two
rotting boards!
The path starts out rather nice and easy…
The whole community in this area
was very nicely organized. They had a
chairman and a chair woman and it seemed impressive that instead of fighting
over where water should be, they told us who needed it the most. They had lots of committees and we saw some
of them having meetings. We will decide
how much we can do for this area, in particular the spots that have no clean
water nearby or relieve the cue lines that form at too few clean water hand
pumps.
We didn’t do much else as it began
to rain hard. We headed home early and
had a few hours to get caught up and then went to dinner. We ate some Ethiopian food. We ordered a main dish and veggies and we asked
for bland, not hot, spicy food. The main
dish was not spicy but 3 of the veggies were.
They put it on this flat spongy bread and there are rolled up pieces of
it on the side. You pull off a piece of
the rolls and grab the food to put it in the bread-like pieces. It was interesting, but some of it was
definitely ‘hot’.
Our Ethiopian
dinner. We topped it off with going to
the ice cream place nearby.
Gee, what a nice day we had! Till tomorrow…
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