Dear Family and Friends,
We made contact today with the geologist who will help us locate water for Menkhoaneng. His name is Dr. Gideon Groenewald. He’s a tall, gangling, redheaded, white South African who has been working on water projects in Lesotho for the past 35 years. In addition to being a water expert he is a self-proclaimed “dinosaur hunter”. There are many dinosaur artifacts in Lesotho – footprints in the sandstone cliffs, bones, and eggs with embryos still in them and Dr. Groenewald has them all in his rambling zoo-like home. There are animals everywhere – even a big collection of snakes!
As is true of many South Africans he has several jobs. For the last few years he’s been working with an international organization called the “Peace Parks Foundation” establishing parks throughout South Africa and Lesotho. In our initial meeting we found we know all the same people in the Lesotho Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture – swapping mutual contacts felt like old home week. His own business is called “Metsi Metseng” it means “water for the villages.” We think he’s perfect for the job.
Gideon is going to go with us to Menkhoaneng on Wednesday to look for potential well sites as well as to look at the possibility of piping water from one of the several natural springs that are high in the mountains behind the village. Piping the water may be the best alternative. We would cap the springs and pipe water to large storage tanks in the village. He said it would be as pure as bore hole water. He told us the equipment to dig a borehole weighs 14 tons and doesn’t like to tip going over roads. He is going to call the actual well-digger today and discuss logistics.
In the meantime, Patty and I will attend the Community Council session tomorrow in Mate. I now have a South African cell number. From the US it is 011 27 721277840. I’m so glad I saved the cell phone I had from my Peace Corps days – it still works!
Thursday
It has been an absolutely great few days. The meeting with the community council group on Tuesday was perfect. They gave us a huge Basotho welcome with dancing, singing and pledging their support to the project. I saw so many old friends. A few tears were shed. Molise Faratsi, the executive secretary of the council, will be our main contact for this project. He will handle clearing our activities with the myriad government agencies that need to be advised.
On Wednesday Dr. Gideon, his partner De Wet and I left early in the morning for Menkhoaneng. Patty stayed in town to write, read and rest. Our experts brought along lots of very technical-looking equipment. The chief, the two chief village elders and an interpreter met us in the village. After an initial explanation of the various potential solutions to the problem of bringing clean drinking water to the village we began an all day hike to every conceivable potential water source.
We made an important stop at the school to talk to the teachers about immediately adding to the school curriculum a focus on water. We decided that each child will write an essay on the importance of clean water. We distributed composition books and pens for each child for this purpose. The teachers will decide the top ten essays, which will be read aloud to the community at the feast celebrating the opening of the spigots, and each of those children will receive a cash reward. All of the children, 234 of them, will receive a beautiful medal to commemorate the event.
In this culture having the complete buy-in of the community is absolutely essential for the sustainability of any project. The purpose of the essay contest is to get information on the importance of drinking only clean water into the families through the children. The cash rewards guarantee that entire families will participate in helping their children with their essays thereby learning the importance of maintaining whatever system we put in. The medals will most likely become family treasures. We ordered them today. They will be 2-inch ovals in “gold” stamped with the image of Moshoeshoe I on the front. Around the circumference of the medal it will read. “Menkhoaneng, Water is Life”. They will be hung from green ribbons imprinted with “ Metsi Metseng” (i.e. water for the village) 2008. I can assure you none of these children has ever received a medal before – it will be a very big deal for them.
Wednesday was a long but totally satisfying day. We had intense discussions on what route to take to solve the problem but let me just cut to the chase. Here’s what we decided to do. We are going to tap three existing springs located in the mountains behind the village and pipe that pure water into three separate 15,000-liter storage tanks. The tanks will be located for easy access for all villagers. One is just by the school. The second is just by the chief’s house (a very politically correct position) and the third is more or less in the center of the village.
We are hiring villagers to do all the labor. Gideon’s team will act as project supervisors. He has a “bloke” on his team that speaks fluent Sesotho. That guy will direct the labor. Gideon is drawing up all the engineering plans. My next main job is to organize the big feast. We can expect at least 500-600 people. We will have traditional dancing, singing etc. We’re planning to have a community “walk” beginning at the spring that feeds the first storage tank, past the second tank and ending at the tank by the chief’s house where the feast will be held. At each tank the sangomas (traditional healers) will bless the water and the tanks. There will be lots of speeches. It will be an all day affair. The amount of food and cooking involved is daunting. We’ll hire at least ten village women to cook. The tentative date is March 14th.
The work has already begun. We have a team of 16 laborers cutting and hauling rocks to the spring sites. We’ve ordered all the pipes and fittings. They are to be installed next Thursday. Then the long pipes leading to the village must be installed – that’s the most difficult phase of the project.
I’m not expecting this project to run perfectly smoothly. We will certainly run into glitches. But I must say, so far, so good.
Tomorrow, Patty returns to the US. She is flying out of the Johannesburg airport at 7:00 pm and Telia is arriving at 5:20pm. She will pass the baton of friend and companion to Telia. He and I plan on taking a quick trip down to Cape Town but first we will spend a few days working on the project. I can’t wait to introduce Telia to everybody here and I’ll be especially thrilled to put the keys to our monster truck into his capable hands.
That’s it from this side of the world.
Khotso, Pula, Nala,
Peggi
