Lots of Activity

There are a lot of things happening. Last week there were major problems with the well drilling. The wells were caving in as they were being drilled. Well, as it turned out, the expert driller they thought they had wasn't such an expert after all but through a series of incredible events a real expert came along. He is an Israeli man that lives within walking distance of the base. When the Iris guys contacted him he came over and very generously offered his time and expertise to get everything moving. He has recommended equipment and supplies that we need and given expert advice on how to deal with the sticky sand situation. He has even offered to send a couple of his guys over to help drill the first well once we have all the gear we need so everyone is really excited and anxious to get going again.

The gazebo at Noviana is almost complete. They will be pouring a cement floor this week. The village people are SO appreciative...this is such a major improvement for them. They offer to feed us something whenever we show up there. Of course, they have no idea how scary that is for us but we don't want to seem un-appreciative of their hospitality so we eat. It hasn't killed us yet, or even made us sick for that matter, so I guess it's OK. We told Don they were feeding us and he got a bit of a shocked look on his face. He said you're not drinking the water are you? We assured him that we're drawing the line there.

I took a couple of little guys on a outing on Saturday. One of them was an orphan boy from the base named Adriano and the other was a village boy named Johnny. Adriano asked me if we could have lunch together and I said 'sure'. I assumed he meant at the base kitchen but it turned out he wanted to go the the Dolphin which is one of the more famous little cafes along the beach. I told him we could go to the Dolphin and asked him what he wanted to eat there. He said either 'cheeken' or 'umboorger', so we all had 'cheeken'. The boys cleaned their plates completely leaving only a very small pile of completely picked off chicken bones on one side. I was embarassed to leave a not so clean rack and my 'cholera' salad but they helped me clean that up too. Then we went out for a swim in the hot water which was fun but I had to constantly watch our belongings laying on the beach because banditos make off with that stuff in a flash if you're not nearby. I bought them a chocolate bar from a vendor on the beach as we walked home. Adriano thanked me several times and they went on their way.

Don and Elizabeth took us to a secluded, very beautiful beach yesterday. You can find pictures of it on the internet if you Google 'il Pirate Mozambique'. Breathtaking place, again with hot water to swim in. The water is so warm that you have to get out to cool off even though the air temp is well into the thirties. We found lots of cool treasures along the beach that we're bringing home.

It's the beginning of our last week here. I'm hoping that I can help the guys move the well drilling ahead a little further. It would be very exciting to get some water out of a well before I leave. We have a tentative schedule to go to Ibo Island on Thursday to look at a potential site for a new village. We would be traveling in a 5 passenger Cessna for the 30 minute trip. Quite an adventure.

Gotta sign off, the internet here is $12 US per hour and it's not even that fast.