Home But Lots To Do Yet

I've been home a few days now and I've almost recovered from the jet lag. I had a super busy time in Africa and even brought a lot of stuff home with me to work on. My objective today was to get the water analysis from the Mieze well into the hands of someone here who knows what he's looking at, unlike me. I paid a visit to Richard Mercer who operates a Culligan franchise here in the Saint John / Rothesay area. I wasn't disappointed by Richard's expertise and willingness to share his knowledge to help with our Mieze farm project. Richard says that there are some inconsistencies in the report but in general it appears that the water from the Mieze well isn't the best and it can't be easily fixed. Looks like a new well is in order. Hopefully there is good water somewhere on this 140 acre Mieze property.

Photcopies?

The remainder of the money for Brad's project came through while I was in Africa. Now I can get the money to Brad so he can purchase the solar and wind gear he and his family need to live comfortably off the grid many miles from nowhere in northern Mozambique. I also have the money now to send to the orphanage in Johannesburg to implement a wind powered pumping system to keep the water flowing when the grid is down. This system will also help the orphanage to operate more efficiently as electricity rates skyrocket in South Africa.

A statistic that I heard several times while in Africa was that about 60% of existing wells in Mozambique are no longer functioning! That's incredible. So what's the problem? I think a large part of it is caused by broken hand pumps. The rubber seals wear out on these busy pumps and then they no longer work. What a shame when we could easily start a program to do maintenance on these simple systems. The geography is massive though, and there is actually government red tape to go through to get permission to repair a well pump! This is another project that I see myself getting involved in since it has such a big bang for the buck.

I'm so thankful for Duncan, Joe, and Brad who gave freely of their time to show me around and educate me on the real needs of the people vs what we sometimes perceive as the need from here in North America. This is exciting work where it's easy to make a huge difference in the lives of many people. This isn't charity, it's enabling the people to sustain themselves. I can't think of anything I would rather be doing.