Visiting a completed well

After a few hours we turn off the main road onto another dirt road. This road is more of what I expected. It's got lots of ruts, bumps and puddles. There's nothing that looks set to flummox us, but it's slower, jouncier going. Eventually we come to small collection of buildings. Some tone houses on the right and cinder block health center on the left. We're greeted by some other people from REST. We have to walk from here to the first village. We apply suntan lotion and bug repellent. Then we start to walk.

We're walking over hilly terrain on a mostly clear path. We haven't gone far when we walk by an older woman hunched over carrying a bundle of sticks. It's a small reminder that very little in the lives of these people is easy. Ketachoo has told us that this will be a one our walk and Scott has told us that we should add about 50% to Ketachoo's estimate. After an hour, I notice that one of our guides comes up form the back and runs ahead. I take that to mean that we're getting close.

We come around the bend and I can see people gathered in the distance. We're next to a stream bed and I'm toward the front of the group. As they see us the crowd starts to clap and sing. They start to move towards us, but our guides direct us up the hillside away from the most direct route along the stream. On the hillside above the crowd they direct us to sit on some large boulders. The crowd starts coming up the hillside and there are a lot of them. They are led by four women carrying broad bowls with popcorn. Then as they get close they start throwing the popcorn up in the air so it showers down on us. Scott told us this would happen, so I'm not caught totally unaware. He's also told we'd get some lolling - a high pitched "la la la la" sound that the women make with their mouths slightly open. We've been released to walk down the hill now and there are people all around us and they're clapping and they're singing and they're throwing popcorn and they're lolling. I want to take off my sunglasses so the people can see my eyes, but I'm crying so I don't do it yet. I'm hoping the tears are blending with my sweat so they're not noticeable. Perhaps, they'll think that white people sweat from their eyes.

We reach the bottom of the hill and are seated on a rough wooden bench. I'm under control now, so I take off my glasses. Everyone is looking at us with an intense, but somewhat blank stare. The best I can make of it is that they are trying to understand us. For some of them we are probably the first white people they've seen. We are sitting next to the well which has a nice stone wall around it and a ribbon across the entrance. The men are all to the right of the well as we face it. Along a pathway just above the well sit the village priests under colorful umbrellas. All the women and many girls are sitting on the left, slightly below the well along the stream bed. They are all clearly wearing their best clothes.

The village leader gives a speech as Ketachoo translates. The essence is "thank you for helping us build this well; we've also invested a lot of work; please help the neighboring community because they need clean water too." This is a good sign, because it's important for the community to feel ownership of the well. So the accounting of all the effort they invested and the sense that it is their well is reassuring. We generally say that a hand-dug well should cost about $4,000 and serve about 400 people. This well is serving about a 1,000 people and cost less than $3,500. That means it's costing less than $3.50 per person to provide clean and safe drinking water, potentially forever.

I have been chosen to cut the ribbon. They give me a normal scissors, but I hold it with two hands hands like the huge scissors I've used at other ribbon cuttings. I cut on both sides of the bow and then I enter to pump the well. Now the well's been in operation for a few month, so the pump is already primed. It only takes a few pumps to get water out. My memory of pumps is the heavy cast iron one's found at picnic grounds when I was a kid. This is not one of those. It's an Afridev pump. They are designed to be easy to maintain and repair. I'd guess it's made of aluminum. At any rate, it's very easy to pump. I get a little silly and pump behind my back and then try with my foot to no avail. I then take the obligatory drink of water from the pump. It's cool and good.

My overwhelming sense is that I'm an imposter. It's not just because I'm cutting the ribbon on a well that was started before I'd done anything with charity:water. It's more because it takes so little of what we have, yet it's such a big deal to these people. I'm not articulating it well. I'll finish this in the next post and try to have a better explanation then.