Picoco Well - day 2

We spend the morning trying to arrange air tickets for a team coming here in January. As those things do here, that took the entire morning but we were successful although we have to go back tomorrow to pick up the tickets. We then confirmed that the materials for our Intaka well had been delivered, but they aren't going to install the pump until January 6. I'd been hoping for a well for Christmas - but at least the materials are in storage at our Khongolote church.

After some errands related to the upcoming conference, we headed back out to Picoco, arrive late in the afternoon to a totally different situation. Today's activities consisted of boring the hole out with a different drill bit and preparing the bore hole for the plastic tubing. What a mess - soupy muddy water running down a former foot path as the hole was opened up and cleaned out. The task today was to get the plastic pipe in the ground. They are estimating two more days with the equipment on site and then they will start the top part of the well. At first our increased cost was a bit of a shock to me, but after watching what is involved, I'm beginning to understand much better - it is an incredible amount of work using lots of specialized equipment. This well will be a little over $7000 when we are done because of the increased scope - about three times what we are spending at Intaka - it all depends on the terrain and the equipment you need.

If you look closely at the one picture that shows more of the scenery (and lots of green from our recent rain! PTL!), you can see a small round mud house with a thatch roof. This is the home of one of the church members and I need to ask her if she is from the north. Those kinds of houses are more characteristic of the houses in northern Mozambique than here in the southern part of the country. She is a sweet lady and did come visit with us a bit today. She is especially looking forward to having the well up and running and may be who we put in charge of the well relative to 'keeping an eye on it'.

As a side note - a reporter showed up today to learn more about this church and organization that would drill a well for the community. The local government officials are very pleased to have this being done for the community. Nelio was the front man for the interview so another opportunity for the church. We greated the group but didn't engage in much of the conversation - we ran out of language real quick with it being the end of the day.

On the way back, we bought three small banana trees to plant in our yard from a man on the side of the road out in the country. Paid about a dollar sixty for each of the three foot trees. They are the small banannas we like so well here and should be producing in a year. Things grow really fast here (and year-around) if they get water. So, we will see what comes of this little project.

Thanks for standing with us so faithfully!

Dave & Ann