October 28, 2016

Another full day.

We picked Brother Buah up at 8:30 and headed out to the 5/5 school. We have a project of a hand-dug borehole starting today. This is the first one that we are putting in. When we pulled in the children (250 of them) were at recess. When they saw the truck, they all began jumping up and down and screaming. They were so happy to see us. To keep them from stampeding us there were older children using the canes to Flog anyone within a few yards of us. Little children were crying. It broke my heart. I should have stayed in the truck. We have been to this school several times and we had a turn-over ceremony here in June. At that time, the children warmed up to me and wanted to shake my hand and touch their thumbs to my thumb and then they would kiss their thumb. That must be some kind of bonding ceremony because ever since then they are drawn to me. There were enough children crying from being flogged that Mrs. Scott ordered all the children back to their classrooms. I think today they were especially excited because they know we are helping them to get a water well and they will have to stop going down to the stream to fetch water. Unfortunately, the children have been drinking unfiltered water from the stream and diarrhea and cholera are prevalent. The well will provide clean drinking water and it is in the middle of their compound. As we were watching the men get started on the borehole, Don and I Both noticed three little boys were standing on the edge of the porch urinating into a ditch. There were half a dozen little girls watching and judging which one could urinate the furthest. Children can make a game out of anything. Competition is good for the soul.

From here we went over to Jonathan's Kiosk water business and introduced Brother Buah to a whole new idea in providing water to the poor. He was fascinated. We spent about 45 minutes here.

Then we went to welthungerinternational. This organization provides wells to households instead of communities. They have developed alternative, toilets, showers and tap water into homes. We were there for about 3 hours, talking, seeing slide presentations and then taking a tour of their whole facility and seeing first-hand demonstrations on their products. Again, Brother Buah was fascinated.

When we left here, Brother Buah asked if we would be going by the 5/5 school. Yes we are. So we stopped to see the progress of the hand-dug borehole. We watched for about an hour. School was out so there were not many children there.

I had invited Brothers Buah and Thomas to stop at our house for dinner. We go within 6 blocks of our apartment. I asked Geneba to make dinner for us and to start it about 3:00 so it would be ready to eat when we got here. We arrived at 5:00 and she was just starting it. I was not happy but this is so typical of Africans. I jumped in to help her and she was not happy. I only knew there was too much to do and we had to get Brothers Thomas and Buah back into Freetown and Don back home before it got too late. We have a full weekend ahead of us. We made groundnut stew, rice, fried plantain, and a plate of raw vegetable. It was very good. But we made everyone wait for almost an hour. Don was not happy. But everyone enjoyed the very good favors.