Latrines, wells and a cure for malaria...

Friday, April 20, 2018

We had another nice, easy day, departing at 9 AM and getting back about 4 PM.  We looked at some of the projects that have recently been completed. We also met a gal named Jenny that the Teerlink’s want to use to do the community development and hygiene training.  They met her while developing a project in a certain community.  When they saw how this lady organized everyone in her community, was a problem-solver and so self-reliant, they realized that she might be a good fit.  Jenny looks to be in her 30’s but is 49 she said.  She has 3 children of her own but has lots of people living with her including a very old mom that she claims is 101.  (We think it is closer to 98, but that’s okay.  No one really knows exactly how old they are here in Africa.)  I met her sister and her sister’s grandchild and her mom, and I know others bunk at her place.

This is just one of the few wells we saw today, part of last year’s project that have recently been completed.  On the right is a latrine in this same place.  It was clean and on the side of the wall is painted, “Do not stand on the seat!” They have raised ceramic bowls that they typically stand on to use, but these they are supposed to sit on and learn a new way…we had some strong ladies here keeping things clean and collecting money for its use. 

We were sitting around the new well in Jenny’s area and she brought out her bookkeeping.  We’ve never seen such incredibly kept records that she is keeping for the money collection for their new clean water well.  This is a very deep well so it is hard to pump the water up to the top.  Jim had them get a tool and they lengthened the pipe and it helped make it a lot easier.  This group is already thinking ahead (with Jenny in the lead) and want to put in a mechanized system.  They will put in a sump pump, pump the water to a tank above, and let it go out into the community.  They will purchase a generator until the government gets around to putting power on the poles that they just installed, but it will take 2 years before they see those wires and they don’t want to wait.  She said that they have about 3,500 people in the area and they all come to fetch the water at the new well.  Their new plan will get the water closer to the people. Jim asked if they were compensating the lady who was the well caretaker and suggested that they should pay her for her work—either free water or a small salary and they agreed, after he gave them his thoughts on the matter. 

This is Jenny and another community member working with the new well project.

Then we met with Jenny by herself.  Teerlink’s began telling her of their plan to hire her (she is also well-educated) as a community development worker and hygiene trainer on future jobs.  As we broke up the meeting and got back in our truck we saw Jenny walking in front of us and were delighted as we saw her giving a double fist-bump in the air!  It was so cute that we all wished we had been able to get a picture of that.  Jenny got a job!  And we are happy too!

We saw a few more sites and were disappointed with some of the concrete work again.  We all decided that besides talking and training and showing them plans, after we leave and on the next job the Teerlink’s will have all the site monitors, contractors and their technicians come to a demonstration.   As they mix concrete on a project mix in the proper way they can see what we really want.  They insist on doing it the African way, and that is never good enough for anything to last.

A brand new well, and already a hole…hmmmm….African concrete.

When we were in Kenya we remembered seeing a tree with yellow flowers that they said was good to cure malaria.  We saw this same tree and talked to this lady who showed us the pods from this same tree.  You take the seeds out of the pod and peel them and if you eat one every day you won’t even get malaria.  We each ate one—not too terrible. 

That evening we ate at our hotel and mainly wanted to do this so we could report to the area office about the hotel.  We will stay here again, but ask for this room when we come.  We know it has the remodeled bathroom and a softer bed and an air conditioner that actually works.  We presume that the dignitaries will not be sent here, but regular people like us can be—the others can go to the Royal Grand.  This is good enough for us, even though yesterday it took several tries before we got them to bring us the towels that they took so they could wash them—they just didn’t bring them back.  We are, after all, in Africa…

One of the women in charge of the latrine—don’t mess with her! You better pay if you use this bathroom!  Don’t stand on these—sit!!

A nice, relaxing day

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…

Pictures Liberia travels

More wall writings from village homes.  This home was decorated on all sides.

Elder Teerlink asked if this was a church--it was.  He decided to see what the bell sounded like--it was LOUD!  He thought maybe people would come running to worship!

Above and below, another one of Andy's Village/Chico drilled wells.  I like how he put permanent reminders on the wall to keep the place clean.
I like how there is pea gravel all around the well to keep it cleaner.  Such beautiful work!

I can't tell if this is a sister carrying her brother, or a mom--it is hard to tell.  I thought she was young because she was short.

I was trying to get a picture of his Cub Scout hat!

They make good use of their bamboo with this lovely piece of furniture.  I tried it; it was actually comfortable.

I rarely get a picture of children all waiting for it, but some of the men organized them.

Since pineapples grow only one to a bush and take a long time to grow, it was especially nice to get offered 3 pineapples for our group.

A pretty mom and her girls.

We thought this was some cool architecture for a mud, thatched roofed hut.

Above and below: the dining room above and the kitchen below in a hut not attached to their house.

More writings on the walls.  All 3 of these are the same house. 

Pretty cool, huh?

With Sister Teerlink

As we drove I snapped this picture.  They light the jungle on fire and let it burn till it stops; then they make charcoal out of the wood to use and to sell.  It is awfully devastating-looking, but then there is way more green than there is of a burned out section. 

I had to trudge through tall weeds with uneven ground, and over some loose rocks to get this picture.  It wasn't that it was far because it wasn't; it's just that I stumbled along making a fool of myself again as I had done earlier on the trail to look at where the people got their water.  I figure they felt I couldn't possibly stay on my feet!  But this picture was worth the embarrassment.  

Pictures, Liberia

Garbage, it's everywhere, but then there is no place to put it.  I guess that's why we love the villages so much, they are clean and free of debris.

Above & below, an interesting lid to a dip well.

A man in this area decided upon  strategy to protect his area from floods during the rainy season.  He got volunteers to dig these trenches to keep the impending floods from destroying the area each year.

This same man owns this secondary school.  The man at the left is not the owner but the principal.  The owner is one of 13 children and we briefly met his sickly mom.  She lives right across the way from this school.

Teerlink's gave this school desks as part of their cooperation between the technical school that mills the wood and the blind group that sands and stains the wood.  Now they are also putting them together.  Each chair has an owner, who puts his name and phone number on his chair.

Usually the concrete is improperly done in Africa, so this was a good solution to the problem.  At this school they just put broken tiles in the walkways.

Villages above Kakata

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

It was another long day, made even longer by the most incredible traffic jam we’ve ever been in here in Liberia.  The Teerlink’s also said that they had not seen the likes of this before.  We were returning home when we got stuck not that far from our destination.  It took us an hour to get out of the jam in an unbelievable gridlock.  We found out later that it was caused by an event at the stadium where they hold football games, but this time it was for the President and Vice President, some political speeches.  They just elected a new government so people here are ‘hopeful’ that things will get better.  We presume that in a year they will know if they had a reason to be hopeful.  All I know is that by the time we got back to town, had our dinner and returned to the hotel, it was 9 PM.  Each day has its own way of being exhausting, and we were all very tired before getting stuck!

Every afternoon now it rains.  It begins suddenly and thunders away, raining so hard that it makes rivers immediately.  Then it stops for a bit, allowing us to get back to the truck or a building.  This happened yesterday and again this afternoon.  We ate at a restaurant with good American food.  While there the thunder was spectacular with the rain showing what it can do in a short amount of time.  Again we waited till it was raining lightly so we could get back in the truck and head for the hotel.

Back to this morning: We began our day, departing the hotel at 7:30 AM and drove to Kakata, which takes 2½ hours.  We picked up Aaron, a man that is helping with the village and Chico drilling company.  The difference between the two is that the village drill is using men to hand drive a drill to dig a well.  The Chico drill simply uses a small motor to do the same.  The village drill is used in remote villages where drill rigs cannot get to.  They could be hand dug in hard-to-reach areas also, but there are differences between the two methods and we determine if we want one or the other in a particular area, determined by a great number of factors.  Much of it has to do with how best to get the water.  There is granite, which is hard for anything to get through except for a large drilling rig, and even they don’t always work; hand digging a well into granite requires a jack hammer; the hand and motor driven drills cannot get through granite.  There are ground water problems here also, swampy lands.  Sometimes when you are too close to the beach you get salty water.  Then there are times when you get no water at all, as happened with one of our recent projects.  There are many problems to be solved and decisions to be made at each project site.

Today we spent all of our time in the more remote villages in the hills above Kakata.  I like these best and so does Sister Teerlink.  We love the look of the villages with their thatched roofs, swept dirt (clean of trash), and community feel.  They are all connected and are more likely to work together.  I can’t even remember how many places we stopped, all with Jim, Aaron and me in the back seat quite squished together.  Eventually we were done with our looking and dropped Aaron off.  He will be a good asset for us to work with in the future.  Also accompanying us (but on a day-hired bike taxi) was Steven.  He is a man from this remote area who moved away and now wants to help his former home village areas.  He has built orphanages and schools and now is interested in getting more clean water in these areas outside of Kakata.

It is beautiful here, with incredibly lovely palm fronds, pineapple plants, mango trees, bougainvillea trees, and little rivers.

We looked up John Harmon, one of our site monitors, to look at a spot near his home area for a possible well.  We looked at some recent wells constructed as area projects that the Village/Chico drill company completed recently—they looked lovely.  We are impressed with his work and Aaron will be the man here working when Andy is back in the States where he lives.  He is the American we met with a long beard, hoping for parts in Church production where beards are good to have.  He is the man that drug his whole family here a year ago and lived here with them to give them an interesting experience; it no doubt did them good.

We drove on typical rain ditched, pot holed roads, which motorbikes, not cars, were meant for; we drove over makeshift wood plank bridges, and sloughed through mud and water.  We come home hot, sweaty, and dirty, with sand stuck in our sandals; all we want to do is take a shower, but there are other things to do when we get back like reports and washing.

Above & Below: We trudged over wobbly boards across streams, and paths that I stumbled on.  I joked that if I had a bucket of water on my head I wouldn’t keep slipping off the boards and slipping on mossy rock steps…

Aaron, Andy’s local manager: he got baptized a little over a year ago and recently had his family sealed to him in the temple.  He used to be a Muslim.  He has worked with all kinds of drilling companies in the past, but said he always wanted to preach the Gospel.  He was called to be the Gospel Essentials teacher at church and now feels that he is doing what he has always wanted to do.  Those who know him now call him the ‘preaching driller’.  He is a nice man.  I was glad, however, when after many hours stuck together we finally dropped him off.  It was a tight squeeze!

Steven above, the philanthropist who works to help the villages where he was brought up.  I love that we see many bougainvillea trees with their vibrant color.  Below: we saw pictures drawn on the homes here.  This boy’s name is Gred—all he needed to do was add an ‘ing’ and he’d have it!

Well, exhaustion is complete and I have too much to do tonight, so I am glad for a later start tomorrow and they promised a shorter day…we shall see…it has a way of getting extended!

I’m hear my bed calling me!

Mostly pictures, Liberia

We spent most of our day checking out areas where we might want to do a water project.  It was so hot and humid we all looked for trees or buildings where we could find shade.  The walk was long and all we wanted to do was get back in the air conditioned truck and get a cold drink!  It is so exhausting that I begin to feel like a zombie!  Below, some pictures from our day:

The graveyards are above ground.  The wealthier families are able to bury their dead in tiled boxes with plaques with quotes and the name of the deceased; those who don't have the money, place them in cement boxes and scrawl a saying along with the name of their relative.

While walking around in this highly populated community we saw many dip wells, but they were too salty for drinking.  This was one of the few that was drinkable, thus all the buckets waiting to be filled.  We might do some type of project in this large area.

Above and below: We met Andy on another trip.  He does a hand-drilled village drill and it us used in remote areas.  He also has a motor driven drill, which this one is.  His community development and construction are really, really great.  Below is one of the few properly done soak away's I've ever seen.  

This is one of our hand dug wells in the beginning stages of construction.

This must be the most popular kid on the block!  His dad made him an airplane out of metal scraps.  It was so cool!

We walked all over this huge area and checked out their water conditions.  This is city water.  The caretaker collects the money from the community and pays the bill to the city government.  In one area the caretaker disappeared with the money for the bill and now they owe $1,000 so the water was shut off.  They wanted us to pay their bill.  (Not happening!)  We told them we'd help after they figured out how to pay their own bills.  In other areas the water is just sometimes shut off, sometimes for a week at a time, so they want more stable water.

They start them young.  This little girl was hauling sand for her momma--something in the house.