The continuing story of our past trip to Mozambique...
Wednesday, 10-8-08We awoke to a beautiful day, had a good breakfast and headed out to Chumene (Xumene in Portuguese). It was about 9:30 when we finally left the guest house, which in hindsight was much too early. We arrived at the well site in Chumene about 11 am only to find that the well drillers had been delayed on another project and would not arrive at our site until about 3 pm.
While we waited for the drilling crew to show up, we explored the new parsonage that is being built at the well site. This building is being funded by the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Church and was started once we committed to drill a well at this site. It is a good sized building with many rooms that will be used for worship service and bible studies until such time as an actual church can be built.
The drilling crew showed up around 3pm. Once there, they had to tow a water tank back into town to get water, which is required for the drilling process, and finally returned to begin their work on the site around 4:30pm. They worked until dark, which was about 7:30pm that evening. The plan was to return the next morning and complete the drilling.
We went back to the guest house and had a late dinner. After dinner Zef came by with Manuel, the head of The Living Water Society in Mozambique. Manuel was the one that oversaw the entire drilling operation that day and had come by to pick up payment for the well drilling. We paid him 96,000 Meticais ($3,920.00). This payment was for the drilling of the well only. We would be required to pay an additional amount when it was determined what type of pump was needed to be installed.
We learned from Manuel that over the past few years they have drilled 50 wells. 3 of these wells were not successful and had to be shut down. The problem they are most likely to encounter is salty water. I wasn’t quite sure if he was telling us this now to soften what we might encounter tomorrow or if it was just casual conversation.
Thursday 10-9-2008We had planned on returning to the well site the next morning, but learned that they had broken a piece of equipment and would not be able to continue drilling until much later in the afternoon. This is really not uncommon when working in Africa. It is often “hurry up and wait” with projects, and patience is required in their culture. So we decided to go visit the United Methodist Women’s Training Center/ School at Tsalala.
In the evening, the school is a training center for women to help teach them skills that will help them get jobs and raise them up out of poverty. During the day the school holds classes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades in the morning, then 4th and 5th grades after lunch. The normal class size is about 35 students, however, due to a teacher shortage in the public schools, due to lack of funding, Tsalala has 135 students in 1st grade. We had brought a soccer ball and a jump rope for the students. A small thing like that doesn’t mean much to us…but you should have seen the joy in these kids faces from a small gift like this.
We were hoping to be able to purchase desks for the three class rooms. The students currently have to sit on the floor. We were given some preliminary estimates prior to our trip that the cost would be around $1500, which we were prepared to give. Unfortunately, when we went to visit a furniture factory near the school, we found the cost to be much higher so we decided that we would hold off and see what the price of the desks would be if we purchased them from the vocational school in Cambine.
We found out that afternoon that the well drilling was still on hold due to the piece of equipment that had broken, so we headed back to the guest house. Later that evening we learned that the equipment had been repaired, drilling had resumed and good water had been reached. With arrival of such good news we turned in for the night.
Stay tuned for more about our trip last Fall. In the meantime, some current news:We are busy preparing for our next trip in the end of September. We were blessed to raise $2,720 in our Shredding Event last weekend. A special thanks to all who brought their documents to be shredded. It was a good start towards our next well. If you feel so inclined, you may make a contribution to Alpharetta First United Methodist Church, 69 North Main St. Alpharetta, GA 30009. Please include a note with your contribution that the funds are for The Mozambique Mission.
Thank you for your encouragement and support! Mike and Melody VanderhoffLabels: africa, mission, mission trip, mozambique, real estate, vanderhoff, wells
