Living on the road

We have been spending quite a bit of time on the road with the sand dam project. In August, we took two trips - one for a week and the second for 10 days. Living on the road is dusty. We take bucket baths and as soon as we walk out of the "casa de banho" (house of bath) our feet are immediately covered in dust. We sleep on grass mats (esteiras) with blankets and other assorted things—MCC has two sleeping bags which Joél and I put under our blankets for additional padding. We take all our food and water. The communities have limited access to water so we don’t like to get water from them, plus it’s terribly dirty. So we buy ½ liter and 1 ½ liter bottles of water to drink and take 4-20 liter water jugs with us for bathing and cooking. It’s not enough and we stop at the Zambezi River to refill mid-week and if we go through Mandie, we refill our water jugs with water from their clean well.

Saturday, August 11

Well, we are now “home” in the land of luxury—water in our house, food in the fridge (made by Noemia in preparation of our arrival) and mattresses to sleep in, no chickens, goats, pigs, cattle or guinea hens (known as chickens of the bush here) walking through our campsite or any children assembled standing silently watching the white people do their crazy things.

Our week went well. We met with the same four communities that we met with three weeks ago. They are very excited and half organized to get the project going. The communities are DESPERATE for water. One of the communities has to walk 15 km to one of the other communities to get water and that well is going to dry up between now and October. Several of the communities are planning to go to the Zambeze River (20+ Km) with a cart and cattle to get the water needed to mix with the cement.

On Monday, we traveled from Chimoio to Mandie (pronounced Man dee a) and slept there. Tuesday, we visited all four communities and let them know when we would be back to talk with the entire community, not just community leaders. Wednesday we visited two and Thursday we visited two. Tuesday and Wednesday nights we slept in two of the communities and had to carry our own water in (in the back of our truck) because of their lack of water. When we met with the communities, Moriane did most of the talking and when someone in the community didn’t speak Portuguese or wasn’t comfortable translating Mick translated. Joél and I asked questions to the community about how they work together, agriculture and past projects they have done. Tony measured potential sights so he can calculate approximately how much concrete we’ll need for each dam and how much sand the dam will be able to hold. One of the communities between Tuesday and Thursday had begun collecting rocks to put in the dam and had two substantially-sized piles.

Saturday, September 1

The communities have begun working. We left Chimoio on Monday, August 20th and drove straight to Canhama. Along the way we stopped at two of the communities to let them know when we would be working with them. We spent two days in each community. The first day, we talked with them about how to organize the work and marked out where the actual dam would be. Tony did some measurements based on the communities knowledge of where the water comes during the rainy season. The second day we had the communities begin carrying rocks and digging the trenches for the dam.

We took machetes, two types of hoes, pickaxes and shovels up with us to leave with the communities. All four of them had begun digging their trenches and collecting rocks for the dams.

We had to ask several of the communities if they really wanted to do the work because though we gave them several days notice of our arrival and time of community meeting, they were really late. So we had them consider if they wanted to do it or wait. All decided in favor of it because they are so anxious for water.

The communities

Canhama (can yam a) has to walk 15 km to get water and that well goes dry in October. They apparently had a decent harvest but are dry, dry, dry. They keep their cattle at the Zambezi River 20+km away where sometimes crocodiles get their cattle. The community began digging and though we expected to hit rock within in a few feet, when we left, they had yet to hit rock and were digging through hard soil. The children even got involved in carrying rocks. (see picture below)

Mambue (mam bwe) has a well 2 km away but its the same one that Canhama and 5 other communities use and so have to use a well 5 km away when the well goes dry in October. They did not have a good harvest. Ironically, they offer us food--massanicas (small apple like fruit) and corn whenever we visit. They had begun gathering rocks after our first visit. This dam will be the longest--close to 50 meters in length. Fortunately it will be able to collect alot of sand behind it.

Tchinda (tcheen da) walks a ways for water. Their river is almost ideal for a sand dam because it is wide, full of sand and has rock walls see above picture). During our first visit in August, we encountered a delegation from the government talking with the community about their situation. In a letter that the community addressed to the government, they identified three major problems--water, hunger and the school. I hope that our project with the sand dams works and helps them get water which in turn will aid in being able to grow crops for themselves.

Thangera (tan jer a) is the community with the huge hole that they dug out for water. Though they have water close, they share it with five communities and the water is limited and dirty. This dam will be the smallest but the digging will be more difficult because they have to carve out crumbly rock.