A Tale of Muddy Water and Diarreah.

Now that we have your attention...

Our second day of drilling and education brought many joys and surprises, as we figured it would, though it started with comforting words of faith with Jim leading our devotions this morning with a passage from Philippians. Jim talked about encouragement in Christ, and we shared a little of how we felt affected by our first days' work. This was a solid time of prayer and sharing upon which to build our day.

The people of Tololar greeted us warmly this morning, and with an air of recognition from yesterday. Our drilling equipment was where we left it, and the truck with our education supplies was already there. The wind was a little less, so we didn't have the pervasive dust devils pelting our faces as we did before, though that also meant the weather felt hotter. We made sure we stayed hydrated with our own clean water before the pump would provide the village with their own.

A panoramic view of our work site. The drilling is left of center, and the teaching about 50 yards away towards the right.

 The drilling continued where we left off with one huge exception! We changed to a 7-1/2" drill bit. This meant that we had to open the first 120' we drilled yesterday, then continue drilling with the larger material removal the rest of the way. We made it to 145', and the plan is to make it to 190' tomorrow morning. This larger diameter also meant greater material removal. The cleaning out of the settling pits took a lot more attention today.

The shaft is 4" diameter, and the hole is not 7-1/2" around.

Cleaning out the settling pits. Definitely one of the dirtiest jobs on site!

Our hygiene education team picked up where we left off, with the exception of some personnel changes. Linda and Fred moved from education to try their hand at drilling, while Tedde and Eric joined as teachers. We learned about what causes the most trouble with bad hygiene - diarrhea and dehydration. Tedde had a LOT of fun creating Bottle Bambino Benito and making him sick with dark water, and then a leaky side demonstrating that water leaving the body is a bad and dangerous thing. More importantly, we learned how to take care of ourselves by re-hydrating with a solution of water, salt and sugar so we stay healthy. What a treat to watch Tedde get both the mom' and children's classes clamoring to squeeze the water out of poor Benito. It seemed to be a great lesson, and one which can go a long way to preserving the health of someone after they get parasites, and before they can get the clean water.

One of our boys gets squirted by Benito's water.

We also learned more about keeping clean, and how to wash and brush with clean water. Janet showed us how to properly brush our teeth on one HUGE set of chompers! Even those of us with good hygiene learned a thing or two from the demonstration. As a craft, we made paper bag super teeth, which the kids very much enjoyed playing with, walking up to you and saying 'Hola!'.

Hola Chompers!

While the education team cleaned up, we continued to watch the drilling team make headway. The going was slow because of the extra diameter, but also due to hitting some very tough clay layers. It was a harder work day all around, and our crew was ready to head home after the heat of the day.

The Living Water compound. Our home for the week.

Good night from our weary but encouraged group.
The PCB Living Water Team