Thursday, December 3, 2015
We had an easier day today. Mathias Leben was feeling ill yesterday so he
slept all morning and joined us later.
We had lots of errands to run to gather materials and supplies to build
one rain catchment shelter and base here and on Tanna Island.
We found some paint for Jim to
use to mark the area where he wants the people to build the rain catchment
structure so that they’ll know where to dig.
When we went to the place where it is to be built, it was all grass and
plants and in no way ready for building.
He claimed that by tomorrow afternoon the area would be cleared and
leveled. Then Jim can start showing the
men how to build the free-standing rain catchment structure, which will be on a
base. He will do the same in Tanna next
week when he and Elder Leben fly there.
When we visited the tank manufacturer,
thinking we’d be getting our ordered 10,000 liter tanks for the two projects,
they said that the machine was broken that made them, so perhaps it would be
available by Christmas (we’ll be gone then).
So, Elder Leben will have to finish the rain catchment from the roof to
the tank, which he is quite capable of doing.
Best laid plans never seem to work well in other countries…
We came back here for lunch and a
swim, and then afterwards they picked us up again. Elder Leben was feeling
better and joined us. We drove back up
the high hill to meet with a Branch President who owns a drilled well. The water is pumped by engine to about a
3,000 liter steel tank, which we don’t often see (steel tanks). This is another privately owned well, but as
others here do, shares with whatever families live in the area near him—usually
there are 5-9 families that share a well.
When we drove up to the pump house we found a road that was hard to
distinguish because it was totally overgrown with high grasses. I felt like Joan of the Jungle, getting out
of the truck and trudging through the bushes.
There must be a road
here somewhere…
Steel tank privately
owned by Branch President. He has a
drilled well that runs off a generator and pump, and is pumped to this tank,
then distributed to home areas and gardens.
We stopped by the man’s house
that had just put the nice siding on the donated structure that the church had
given him and saw that he was nearly done—it looks really nice—most people will
probably just add ‘coppa’ as they say here, meaning copper or corrugated iron. We noticed several water points in that area,
and electrical poles. We are here to do
rain catchment, but in a drought want to also do something more long-term for
when the rains stop. It appears that
there is a possibility for drilled and hand dug wells, rain and stream
catchment, besides just roof rain catchment systems. How long will they be able to have clean
water if it isn’t raining at all?
This is a shower (above and below). They have city water here
sometimes so they can keep clean. Some
people do smell a bit that have not been able to shower, but most of them find
a way to keep clean. This shower is
probably shared by a few families in the area.
Tonight here at our resort they
had a live, one-man band come to play and sing during the dinner hour—he was
lovely to listen to and it was so soft that we could converse without raising
our voices. The Leben’s joined us. We really felt like we were on vacation
tonight. We saw the most interesting
drama being played out as we watched (water was lighted) the little sea
creatures look for food. We saw crabs
crawling and sea cucumbers subtly changing their shapes, little needle-nosed
fish that look like leafs on the water till night-time when they quickly dart
about, star fish occasionally moving position, sea urchins suddenly grabbing a
tiny fish as it swims by. We were so
fascinated that we couldn’t take our eyes off of this for long.
Starfish, many of which
we see here in the lagoon next to the deck of the resort. Notice the black sea urchin on the bottom
right of the picture.
Love, from Efate Island
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