While we may spend a lot of our time waiting, and our plans change almost constantly, life here is certainly interesting and we are enjoying time spent talking with the people from George Compound. Monday, Ron drove the truck to the building site with the old trailer and the new rototiller on board. This in itself is an adventure as the road to George is a myriad of holes and ruts that make driving it a true challenge. But we made it, and all the men came running to help unload. They were especially fascinated by the rototiller. They spent a long time examining it with lots of chatter amongst themselves before asking "what is this machine with gears and blades?" They were really excited when they heard it would turn the soil while someone only walks behind guiding it.
And then began our day of waiting. We were supposed to meet Brown Banda (construction manager) in town to purchase timbers and deliver them to the building site. Foster called Philemon (project engineer) and said we should just wait there. Karen, Steve and Foster were in town taking care of business (including buying phone cards - so we didn't have a phone), tires for the car, and checking on baby Frederick who had been admitted to the hospital after one of the clinics last week. During our four hour wait, we saw the incredible hard work our men were doing. They are digging the cistern and are about four meters down. Their tools are a pick, shovel, ladder and bucket. Two men are in the hole with pick and shovel carving out a perfect rectangular hole while one man is on the ladder to pass up the bucket of dirt to the men on top. We also saw them fix their lunch at an open fire pit. They made buckets of nshima and beans, and there were three small mice on a stick, charcoaled to a crisp. More later...
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