Saturday April 19 Michael

The goal for today was to get water from the well up to the vegetable beds about 800 feet away and then build the pig enclosure.

With 800 feet of trench already dug, Patrick and I got to work laying and glueing the pipe. It was like puting my sprinklers together just much bigger pipe and a lot more of it. We ran the pipe down and created a connection for where the pump would connect. That did not take much time time but the next step would. No one thought of how to connect the pipe to the water pump, a much needed step. Fortunately our driver Alan was also able to create someting out of nothing. He created a connector using misc. parts including a part from the engine! I was relieved that this was only a temporary option! After one failed attempt, it worked. I ran to the end of the line in my rubber book, note to self rubber boots are not good for running, and watched as water come pumping out. The guys who are responsible for the cattle and vegetables where jumping up and down with excitement. Later they are going to add a water take and pump water into it, then irrigate from the tank. The farm willl be hopping with fresh vegetables very soon.

As we were preparing to go back to our compound, 8 children came out of the bush with huge sacks of leaves on their heads. The leaves are used to wrap the kwanga in. These kids were no more than 10 years old and a couple looked no more than 6. The walk back to the village was about 4 miles and these kids would have already walked down and then now to walk back. To make this story shorter, they got in the truck and got a ride, they were very excited.

After lunch and rest,we went to work on the pig enclosure. We had 20 meteres of fencing so the enclusure was 20 meters square, well kind of square. We put in posts then nailed the fencing to the posts. Patrick held the fencing, I nailed and about 20 people watched! No pressure. It did not take long and it was finished. We hope to have pigs in here Monday, but we will see...

All in all, another great day in the bush. We finished the day by washing up in a 3 walled enclosure that faced the bush. There you strip down and use a bucket of water to clean up. That is what the locals do, so we did too. Good to be clean.


Pictures to come tomorrow.


Grace and Peace,

Michael