November 27, 2010

Today was going to be very busy day. As I mentioned in a previous post, Susan and I came to a village that had the pump at their water supply vandalized. We had asked the chief to get a quote to see if we could manage buying the materials necessary to rehabilitate the well.

Receiving the quote turned out to be the easiest part of the entire program. I was supplied with a list containing 10 different items and given the task of finding the materials in the nearby town of Limbe (it’s on the map). The amazing thing is that no one store had more then 2 item on the list …some had none! It took Milisimo, myself and two village representatives 8 hours and $40,000 kwatcha or approximately $280 US$ to track down most of the parts. We had to visit no less then 8 stores in two cities (had to go to Blantyre also on the map) but then we had to call it a day as the hospital had only loaned us the ambulance for the day, as it was needed to transport a patient to the Central hospital later in the afternoon.

Fortunately we were able to contact a Borehole technician who was willing to assist us on Saturday to refit the well. We explained that we were unable to secure the entire list and asked if he knew where we could get the rest of the materials. As it turns out this off duty government worker knew someone who just happened to have spare parts…. we were able to negotiate price and the transaction took place on the outskirts of town…..

After we secured the materials we made our way back to the village where we were met by the Chief and her husband. Unfortunately, we arrived at the same time that everyone in the village was attending the funeral. We were asked it we could begin repairs and representatives would join us shortly. The repairs took approximately one hour to complete and at the end we were able to get the pump up and running again.

The Chief and approximately 12 or 15 of the villagers came out to thank us when we were finished. The Chief gave a beautiful speech and expressed how fate had brought Susan and I to their village last week and how thankful they were because we able to eliminate the worries of the entire village with our generosity.