I was planning on writing this post once
the water project had been finished, I didn’t want to jinx the project but I
feel like we have accomplished enough that I can tell you about what’s been
going on without bringing down the anger of the Don’t Count Your Chickens Till
They Have Hatched Gods (One of Peace Corps’ most powerful supernatural forces
along with the Hitchhiking Karma). I joined Peace Corps because I wanted to
accomplish something large and tangible. Something that I could see, touch, and
easily see what effect I was having on my community. At University of Miami
(FL) our school president, Donna Shalala did Peace Corps in the 60’s in Iran. I
listened to her talk about her service and said how she had been able to build
a library, a school building, and a well. I wanted to accomplish something of
that nature. So when I got posted to my site and found out that there was no
water and that the previous volunteer had been trying to bring water to our
school I knew that I had landed in the right village.
As I said before in one of my first
posts, here in Shamangorwa we get all our water from the river or from a clinic
five kilometers away. My counterpart has been incredibly helpful in driving me
to the clinic once every two to two and a half weeks to fill up my five twenty
five liter jerry cans. So I’ve been living with 125 liters of water for two
weeks. This comes out to about 9 liters per day. The average American uses 378
liters per day. Lol! One of the main reasons I use so little is because I don’t
have a toilet so we can count out all that water usage. I wash clothes in the
river so count that out to. Showering also disappears. For the first three
months I bathed in the river but then the crocodiles started reappearing. After
that I would bucket bathe, and trying to use as little water as possible as I
did it. I was showering about once a week. Even during half marathon training.
Thanks mom and dad for all that deodorant! Almost all my water went into
drinking and cooking; sacrifices had to be made! Disgusting, I know.
As soon as I arrived I started grilling
Sam, the previous volunteer about how far he had gotten with the water project,
what he had accomplished so far, who he had talked to that could potentially
help, and how I could move forward with the project. Sam’s plan was to build
pipes from a borehole out in the bush, about 2.5km from us, to our water tank
at school. The plan was going well, Sam had gotten the grant, the village that
owned the borehole agreed to share the water, and digging had already started.
But it wasn’t meant to be and our neighboring village changed their minds and
decided that they did not want to share their water with us. So the plan
stopped. I’m sure Sam was very frustrated and understandably so, he came very
close to getting water to the school.
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| Sam fetching water/hanging out by the river |
When I arrived I started talking to the
principal, teachers, and Sam about what other avenues we could go through to
get water to the village. Three ideas came up. Number one was to find if there
was some way through the tribal legal system to get our neighboring village to
share the water. I didn’t want to go forward with that plan, sounded like a bit
too much potential conflict for a PC volunteer to handle. The second idea was
for me to write a grant and get a pump down at the river that could pump water
up a pipe to the school. That plan was also scratched because of how expensive
that would be. And the problem of drinking dirty river water would persist. Our
final plan was the following.
500 meters away from our school a 50
meter deep well had been dug into the ground then covered up with cement. The
idea was that one day the Namibian government would come and set up a borehole
system for the well. A borehole is basically a pipe going down the well. A pump
then pulls the water up and fills up a water tank which is then connected to a
water tap. I was told about this well and it seemed like our best bet. One
month into living at my village I spoke to the principal and asked him how we
could convince the government to set up our borehole. I still remember this
conversation. “Andre, you must go speak to the governor of our region.” Me: “……
The governor? Of Kavango? How am I going to get an audience with him?”
Principal : “ I have faith in you, here is the number for his office, call him
and see what happens.” So I call but nothing happens, nobody even picks up. But
my principal had also given me several other names of people that I could talk
to. So I plan my trip to Rundu to lobby for our borehole. The night before I
looked at my broken mirror and checked out my facial hair. I had about five
days of growth, I considered shaving but I remembered that I would look like a
fifteen year old if I shaved. I knew I was going to be nervous for the meetings
the next day so I decided to keep the beard and try to present a more confident,
adult front.
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| Went to the meetings like this.. Jokes! I trimmed it down a bit, this was the beard at its largest |
I wake up the next morning, put on my
most professional clothes, rub Bruddah Bob’s stomach (he’s my good luck
Hawaiian doll), then head out. I reach town around 8:30 and head to the Peace
Corps office to collect myself a bit and check over my notes. I hang around
until 9:30 then head out to my first target. First rain of the rainy season
starts pouring and I jump into a taxi. “Ministry of Education please,” says I,
“Yes boss!” says the taxi driver.
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| Aloha bruddha! |
Quick tangent if you will allow me;
taxis here are fixed fair, 9 Nam dollars per person for almost any place in
town (90 American cents), and they are shared. So it’s very common to jump in
when someone else is in the taxi or have somebody else jump in with you. It’s
going to be a tough habit to break, I’m already mentally preparing myself to
get cussed out in NYC when I try pulling that maneuver.
Back to the story; I arrive at the
Ministry of Education office. Veteran volunteers had already told me to avoid
this building, they described it as maze where you can never find what you
want. But I had to try. I was looking for the Regional Chief Educational
Planner. After stumbling around and walking into many wrong offices I arrive at
the correct one. I knock on his door, walk inside and catch him in the middle
of a meeting. I step outside, wait for 45 minutes then walk back in when the
meeting is over. I start to explain to him our school’s situation and our goal,
he stops me a minute into my piece and tells me, write about your situation
with what you need, have your principal sign it then come back to me and we can
talk. So I walked out, slightly disappointed in the brevity of the meeting but
also relieved that I had survived my first encounter with the people that I was
trying to work with.
Next stop was the Office of Rural Water
Supply. My principal told me that this office had just received funds to
install several boreholes in our region and that with luck we could become one
of the schools on the list. I go into the office of the Regional Head of the
Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. I deliver my speech and he seems
sympathetic. He tells me that the borehole will be set up in April 2013. This
meeting happened in October 2012. I leave the meeting feeling very good about
myself and optimistic about the future.
The next part of this story happens in
February 2013. I speak to my principal and tell him that I want him to be the
face of the project. I told him that it would be better for the community to
see a local face organizing this effort rather than a foreigner coming and
imposing what he thought was best. This also served the purpose of having his
weight to throw behind the project whenever I went to meetings. My voice as a
volunteer that was going to leave within two years wasn’t strong enough to get
a project like this off the ground. I told him that I could be the workhorse
for the project as long as he attended meetings with me and actively
contributed. He agreed wholeheartedly and we prepared for our next trip to
Rundu.
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| My principal, Mr. Mayira and I |
We first go to the Ministry of
Education. We present our case again, this time with a written document and my
charismatic principal eloquently elaborating our plight. The Regional Chief
tells us that there is nothing that he can do to put pressure on the Office of
Rural Water supply. We keep pressing him and he tells us that he can help us
with a water tank and its stand. My principal and I didn’t have this in our
plans but we looked at each other and telepathically said to each other, “Why
not?” So we walk out of the office with a promise from the Ministry of Education
that they would be delivering a 10,000 liter water tank and its stand to our
school. Our school at the time had two 5,000 liter tanks so it was quite a
surprise to us that we were going to be doubling our capacity unexpectedly.
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| The larger one on the left is our new water tank from the MoE |
At this point I had also written a
statement about our water situation and our goal to get a borehole at our
school. My principal and I then took these statements and got our School
Inspector and the Chief Education Planner to sign them so that we could present
them to the Regional Head of the Office of Rural Water Supply. We brought this
as a backup plan because we were under the suspicion that the Regional Head had
just agreed to the borehole to brush me off and that he never had any intention
to build it. Our immediate goal was to try to get as many people on our team as
we could to support our project.
That same day we go into our meeting
with the Regional Head of the Office of Rural Water Supply. We reach his office
and ask him how we are standing in terms of the borehole construction and if it
will still happen in April. Note to other volunteers working on
projects like this. Your idea may be accepted and agreed upon when you first
suggest it, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. When you follow up what
will probably happen is you will receive reassurances that your plan will
happen but that there is a delay. The next step will be there are no more funds
for your project and that you should just give up. Then after enough pressure
and hopefully a stroke of luck you project will move forward. Today was the
delaying part of the process. The Regional Head told us that he was going to
Windhoek (the capital) to speak to the contractors to see when exactly they
could build our borehole but that it certainly wouldn’t be in April anymore.
We wait until March for our next
meeting. My principal comes with me and we head straight to the Office of Rural
Water Supply Office. The Regional Head isn’t there so we speak to two people
working directly below him. Turns out that our school and borehole hadn’t even
been mentioned to them and that our village wasn’t on the list to receive a
borehole. Not exactly sure what to say and trying to find a way to get us on
the list I began to improvise. I told them that I was sitting on a large grant
(a grant I knew I was going to get but didn’t have yet) to build pipes from the
borehole to the school. I told them that the grant had an expiration date (it
didn’t), by May the money was going to be taken back to go to another project
(there was no other project). They told me that I should just build the pipes
now and wait for them to come. I replied, we aren’t even on your list now, how
do we know that you will ever come to our village? We then kept telling our
story, telling them how our kids were suffering from gastrointestinal diseases,
how far people had to walk for water, and how there was a well already dug just
waiting for a borehole. My principal also stepped in and argued our case. By
the end we had gotten the ear of one of the men, Mr. Diego, and he told us he
would look into the other villages and see if there was another village whose
situation wasn’t as dire as ours. We left feeling dejected but slightly hopeful
that there was still a chance for us.
A month later we find out that our one
supporter in the Office of Rural Water Supply, Mr. Diego, had just passed away.
I began having serious doubts that this project was ever going to get off the
ground.
Late afternoon, May 14, 2013. It was an
overcast day and I was in the teacher’s lounge prepping for my classes the next
day. My principal walks in and informs us that a third grader has just died
from a crocodile attack while she was fetching water from the river. I grab my
phone and punch in the Regional Head’s phone number. I reach his secretary and
deliver the most passionate speech I’ve ever given in my life. I still can’t
believe we lost a child because of foot dragging. We don’t get a call back from
the office for the next few days so I go into the principal’s office. I tell
him that if we are ever going to get water to our village it is going to be in
the light of this tragedy. I tell him that we need to get a few mothers from
our community, take them to the office, and have them properly verbalize the
need of our community because obviously the message my principle and I were
giving just wasn’t cutting it.
My principal pulls his car up to the
school and there are three mothers from the community waiting for him. I look
at them and couldn’t help feeling intimidated. These were mothers from the
village, they had gone through a life of suffering and disappointments, a life
that has never been easy. Only one adjective comes to my mind when describing
them, they looked hard. Like granite.
Granite that had been taking in years of erosion but was still standing. Women
that worked all day, raised upwards of five children, had seen death many
times, and desperate to find a way to improve their community and provide a
better life for their children. And they looked pissed off.
We arrived at the office. I decided to
keep my mouth shut the entire time. This wasn’t my battle anymore. My principal
introduces the mothers and they begin to speak. I still don’t know what they
said that day for it was all in the local tongue. But you could feel an undeniable
energy in the room. It was as if these three mothers were imposing their will
onto the Regional Head. I looked at the face of the leader of the mothers as
she was speaking and saw hurt and anger but also clear eyed focus and
determination. If I were ever in a fight for my life I would have wanted her on
my side. In that moment she seemed implacable.
The meeting ended, and the Regional Head
was stone faced, instead of his usual easy charm he informed us in a grave
voice that we would be put on the list to receive a borehole. He told me that
the contractor would come by the village next week and that we were supposed to
show him the area and he would make measurements for the borehole.
The contractor did arrive, turns out he
actually had family in the village and had heard about the tragedy of the third
grader. He told us that they would 100% be coming to the village to build the
borehole.
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| One of our three tanks for the borehole |
A few weeks later a huge truck pulls up
to our village. It proceeds to dump seven tons of sand onto the side of the
road. Another one comes and this time it dumps seven tons of gravely rock next
to the sand. The contractor told me that to make high quality cement they
needed a specific kind of sand and the gravely rocks. After those two were
deposited on the side of the road the contractor brought two pickup trucks.
They would load all the sand and rock onto the truck and drive it 200 meters to
the borehole site (The larger truck couldn’t get through because the sand around
the road was very soft.) Construction goes on for about two weeks. I spoke
quite a bit with the contractor and he seemed like a very intelligent and
competent guy. Around this time we had also received the tank and its stand
that had been promised from the Ministry of Education. We hired a local man
from the village to set up the 10,000 liter tank. My principal recommended him
and he seemed like a responsible guy so I okayed him to build our tank. Turns
out he was drinking before he would come to work and that he was using very low
quality sand to make cement blocks for the feet of the water tank stand. After
he finished the job the stand looked fine. But two weeks later you started to
notice that the stand was getting a bit crooked. And that the cement blocks
that were surrounding the stand’s legs were cracking. This was when the tank
was still empty, if there had been water in there I doubt that the stand would
have lasted a day. But I had already paid the man and after we noticed how
shoddy his construction was he had already disappeared from the village. And so
goes development in the 3rd world.
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| Construction of the borehole |
But on the other hand the constructors
of the borehole were doing a great job. Very professional, working hard every
day, and you could tell that the overall quality was much higher then what we
had attempted with the water tank. The borehole was completed in June 2013. It
included the 50 meter hole, which lead to a reservoir which I was told contains
enough water to last us 27 years(!). The contractor put up three 10,000 liter
tanks, and a double water tap set up on a cement stand. The pump is powered by
three solar panels. It’s amazing to have those solar panels since Namibia is
sunnier than southern California those panels are always powered and the pump
is always running. Our second part of
our plan was to build pipes from the borehole to the water tanks at school, to
the water tank at the teacher’s courtyard which would bring running water to
our houses, and a tap outside of the school so that the community could fetch
water without coming onto school grounds. I approached the contractor and asked
him if he and his team had the expertise to also build pipes and connect them
to our water tanks. He did and we started making plans.
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| Building the water tap |
This is where the story stops… for now.
The contractor and I, after many negotiations, have agreed on a price to build
all the pipes. He was even gracious enough to fix our water tank free of
charge. Right now we are organizing when the construction will happen (Will
actually be meeting him today). I have the grant and we have settled on the
final price, now all that is missing is to get the job done. I won’t write
anything more about that since this part of this project is still jinxable.
Wish us luck!
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| Before the borehole was finished we were already pumping out water for the kids |
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| Family visiting! |
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