Making it Rain

We have water!  I wish it were just that simple, but the short story is that there is indeed water sitting in a big hole waiting to be pumped up for our daily use.  We don’t know exactly how much yet, but we do know that it will be somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 liters per hour, which is less than we expected and hoped for, but, as I found out recently, a fairly high yield for this area.  As I write this, they are installing the casing down to the bottom of the 133m deep hole.  We expected to strike water at around 80m and reach a maximum depth of 110-120m, but we didn’t strike good water until around 124m.  You can imagine the roller coaster of emotions I was riding as each day seemed to provide news that was cause for both optimism of more water than we could handle and nail-biting concern that the hole would turn up essentially dry.  When they went beyond about 96m, they hit an unexpected extra soft layer that lasted until about 130m.  Being a complete novice, I didn’t understand any of the information that was being passed on to me almost hourly, so my only response to every report was, “iko maji (is there water)?”  I kept thinking about all the people who gave so much to support this project, all the planning that had gone into the programs it would support, all the people who would benefit from those programs, and all the days I had presumably cut off my life by stressing over its overall success.  If it had turned up dry, I don’t know what I would have done, besides crying at the opening of the hole and hoping that somehow my falling tears would cause a never-ending spring of fresh water to rush forth.  I know; I am so dramatic.  But, really, I was preparing myself for that possibility, and trying to figure out how I could break the news to all the people who donated to make this project possible.  The head driller and the owner of the drilling company we hired, who both have decades of experience, were both laughing and telling me they could tell I was a beginner because of how much I worried about every small detail.  They both tell me that, based on all the information they have received from the rock samples and water levels, they expect the actual water availability to be in the upper half of the estimate I mentioned above.  So, the roller coaster isn’t over and I won’t rest easy until sometime next week, when the job is finished and we are reliably pumping enough water.  I don’t want you to worry about all of this because I am sure there is actually no cause for real concern, but I just wanted to pass on this information.  Even if it is at the lower end of that estimate, we will have enough water for our needs, so just leave the worrying to me for now, and know that in the midst of my worrying I am feeling more joy and success than I have felt in a long time, maybe ever.  We have water!

This is what it looks like when you strike water in the highlands of Western Kenya.  We only hope that the water we start pumping into our holding tanks and piping system is just a bit cleaner than this.

Since there is nothing I can really do to contribute to the actual drilling, I have kept myself busy in many other ways.  This helps to not only keep all the other programs on track, but also to keep my mind busy so I don’t go crazy thinking about the water.  One day over the weekend, however, I planted myself on the ground next to the humming drill from right after lunch to right before dinner, sure I would witness the coming gusher.  We did find water that day, though it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as I had hoped and planned; nothing ever is, I suppose.  Chereger (the nursery germination site manager) and I sowed about 25,000 seeds in our brand new seed bed, which will give us a good start and plenty to do.  We will soon be bringing in literally tons of dried cow manure that will be mixed with the plowed soil we will be removing from the tree nurseries. This will provide fertile soil for up to 100,000 seedlings (I am only hoping that this mountain of manure is dry enough that it won’t permeate the compound with the same smell I remember from when my parents hired a dump truck to heap mushroom compost in the driveway every spring.  Not only did it stink, but it encroached on my basketball court.  I digress).  We are also getting ready for rainy season here, which has the community buzzing with excitement.  As I drive through the dirt roads on my way to town, I see nearly every plot’s deep brown/red soil plowed and ready for planting.  There really is nothing like the collective excitement of rainy season approaching in Africa (except maybe March Madness in America, which I just realized I am missing again).  With the coming rains, we are preparing the children’s home garden to be planted.  This means completing the standardization of the beds, finalizing the rotation and succession plan that will lead to fresh vegetables for the children, and buying and germinating a wide variety of vegetable seeds that will support this program.  The really exciting part of this rainy season is that it will conceivably never end, due to the newly accessed groundwater, and will provide all of these benefits for this community year-round.  Outside of the tasks to get these programs ready, we will be very busy making sure the compound is organized and immaculate, as to welcome potentially hundreds of people, including many high-level government officials, for our grand opening celebration on April 2^nd.  I am now feeling what my mom must have been feeling in the days leading up to hosting a party or family gathering.  I could never understand why she stressed herself out so much by making sure the house and yard were spotless for our guests, but now I do, and, Mom, I apologize for giving you a hard time and never contributing in any meaningful way to your task.  We want to send the message to government offices, businesses, NGO’s, farmers, and community members that we are serious about our mission of providing over 1,000,000 high-quality seedlings in the next 5 years to help with reforesting the country, and improving the nutrition of the children through organic gardening, all while providing reliable and sustainable income for the programs of ELI.  This is no small undertaking, and will require the assistance and partnership of many other bodies, but I know that these people are very capable of it, so we will send that message in a strong way to all attendees on the day of the ceremony.

The preschool classes from Samro School took a field trip to check out the drilling.

Within a few days of the completion of the ceremony, I will be heading to Juba, Sudan, by way of Kampala, Uganda.  Juba, or at least Southern Sudan, is where I will spend approximately half of my remaining 4 months in Africa.  Exactly what I will be doing in Sudan remains to be seen, though there is a community on the south end of Juba that Mr. Teimuge, the director of ELI Kenya and my mentor and partner for these six months, has gotten connected with, which has opened up the door for many development possibilities.  We will be leasing a small piece of land along River Nile to develop a large garden and potentially some sort of agricultural and environmental training center.  Again, exactly what this will look like remains to be seen, but since the community is bordered on one side by the mighty river, it is safe to assume that with a little creativity, access to water will not be a major issue.  Southern Sudan will be the world’s newest sovereign country as of July 9^th of this year, offering a huge opportunity to outsiders like us to help in the rebuilding process.  I have only read reports and memoirs of what has happened there in the past few decades, and, though I know I can never even begin to understand what these people have been through, I plan to share all the love and joy I have in me with the new friends I will make there.  I am confident they will do the same for me, and together we can see their land reawakened and providing the foundation for their peaceful redevelopment.  The group and I will be taking the bus from Eldoret to Juba, which I think will take more than a day, so we will stop in Kampala to visit some friends I have there.  If you remember the borderline frightening adventure I had last time I took the bus from Eldoret to Kampala by myself through the middle of the night, you will understand my thankfulness that I have some local companions this time.  I will also spend a few days prior to departing for Sudan down in the Kerio Valley and in Simit (a piece of land known as the hanging valley, situated approximately 4,000 feet below the escarpment and over 3,000 feet above the valley floor, leaving it fairly isolated).  Simit and the valley are areas that we plan to get involved in land restoration by planting vetiver grass and seedlings from our nursery on the suffering hillsides.  I was down there a couple weeks ago on my way to the now nonexistent Lake Kamnarok, and was really astounded by the amount and severity of soil erosion I saw, so I know these erosion control and soil conservation programs will have a huge impact when we get each community as a whole to buy into it.  I will be spending a good amount of time in these areas in between trips to Southern Sudan, so it is important to develop deeper understanding and relationships as soon as possible.

It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

You can see that there is a lot going on that I am trying to keep organized, along with the staff here.  I am so excited about everything we have going on here and wouldn’t trade it for anything, though I have to admit that it is just plain wearing me out recently.  I know that once everything is settled with the bore hole and associated programs, I will be able to take a much deeper breath and really relax, but I am also attempting to afford myself that luxury in the midst of it all.  I am resting in the knowledge that everything will work out as it best can.  I have had no experience in my life thus far to make me think otherwise.  Sure, I have been involved in plenty of things that I felt were pretty significant and required a good amount of attention, and they rarely, if ever, went the way I thought was best at the outset.  But I would certainly not be arrogant enough to think that their outcomes in any way came remotely close to crumbling the world as we know it, or even any single person involved.  I am not going to hide from the fact that I am dealing with a lot with these projects that I have invested a lot of myself into with a lot of other people, and also with waiting to hear from graduate schools and make plans on where my life will pick up when I get back to the states, working through some hurtful relational issues, missing home, and trying to learn an entirely new language so I can more effectively and comfortably live in an entirely different culture.  Collectively, that is exhausting, but, honestly, who isn’t dealing with their own version of this very situation?  This is life, and I love it.  I am going to keep enjoying every moment and living to see smiles grace the beautiful faces and souls of others.   I am more blessed than I can put into words, and I am thankful for this opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact in ways many people never have the chance to.  I am filled with gratitude that I can even begin to observe my being busy, tired, and challenged in these ways.  Also, I recognize and fully accept that this situation is so, so much bigger than me.  This situation is so big that people I am here with now have the free, local, clean water they deserve.  How beautiful and humbling that is.

The mighty Kerio Valley, the thumb on the hand of the Great Rift Valley.

Phew!  I don’t know where that came from.  Sorry you had to sit through it, but every now and then I have to give myself a little public pep talk.  It is now time for evening chai, so I better get going before my family gets worried.  On that note, enjoy the photos and video, and be good to yourself and those around you.