POST 11: Farewell my Friends

I always know it’s time to leave when I run out of my last piece of toilet paper,  when the signs in the Arusha hotel that say “Don’t use the towels to wipe your shoes” and “NO laundry in the rooms” apply directly to me, when there’s not a single thing in my suitcase that isn’t full of dust, when my cravings have stopped and I just want the french fry omelettes.

We saw Jafari in Dodoma and all 3 water points that we looked at have water at varying depths.  The first point will be the best to use because the water is closest to the surface.  We will need to drill down 120-150 Metres to reach water but he seems to think that there won’t be a problem finding it. We will pump the water (using solar) into a reservoir tank that holds 100,000 litres on top of the hill 1km away from the drilling point and then use gravity to bring the water into Iyoli village primary school and then later to the central part of the village with PVC pipes.  We will be getting the scientific graphs in a few days and a more detailed estimate. Jafari is wonderful and smart and has become a friend and I am happy to have him on the water team.

We went to Moshi’s sister’s place for dinner tonight.  It’s actually not his blood sister but someone who helped him out when he moved from his small village, Sori, which is near Iyoli, to Arusha to work as a porter on Mount Kilimanjaro, so he calls her his sister.  He lived in a ghetto but she told him to leave his place there and come to live with her family until he could get back onto his feet, so he did for 1 year. She is a very important person to him and It was a nice way to end my stay here, with his family.

I am lying in bed now curled up in a ball with all the lights on hoping that the cockroach(es) that I just saw in the bathroom don’t crawl into my ear (do cockroaches fear light?) while watching my 3rd episode of “funny Cat Videos” on permanent loop on one of the channels, through a mosquito net, and thinking about success and this project .  I suppose the measure of success for this project will be when people don’t have to dig holes in the sand to find water.

Tomorrow I am headed home and I am worried about the daunting task that lies ahead, to try to find a way to make this project happen, like we did in Cheku.  My goal is to find an organization to partner with so that we can do this properly right from the beginning.  Thanks SO MUCH to those people who have already sent me leads because the more people I can talk to the better (this project is NOT cheap) and I am way too far into it to turn back.  If you happen to want to donate (no pressure) you can through the link on the website and I promise that every penny will go towards digging the well in Iyoli.

This will be my last post and I am grateful to all those people who listened (and responded) to my stories.  I’m sad to be leaving but happy to be coming home to the people I love.  I’ll see you on the other side.

Love from Tanzania
Lara