Today was another day filled with the hustle and bustle we’ve become used to in our short time here. It was another day to split up teams between the two communities – Emma and I returned to Mphero for one last day while Ashley and Jordan forged ahead with the Chilimani partnership.
Complete with the amazing Dr. Kim Bothi and our intrepid interpreter Vi, the Mphero team made record time, finishing up our monitoring work for the trip. We hit the ground running with a meeting with the VIC (Village Implementation Committee), who supervises all the other projects in the village spearheaded by the other committees, including the Water Committee. They shed some light on the inner workings of fee collection and maintenance for the boreholes in the community, and gave a personal touch by letting us see all the wonderful faces and personalities behind the scenes. After that meeting, the water committee was proud to demonstrate to us how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the borehole we drilled last year (see picture below).
Once the water committee was finished their demonstration, we forged ahead with our wonderful interpreter, Vi to finish up the last of the household surveys. For me, this was an amazing opportunity to actually see the Mphero project on a personal level. Before today, it was mostly just printed pages and computer screens, but to actually be on the ground, talking to the people was so powerful and now I feel an even deeper connected to the project than before.
The Chilimani team was also doing household surveys today with Martha, another wonderful friend we’ve met in our time here. They finished up, talking to each of the household clusters across the community. While they were talking up the residents, our team of hydrogeologists were scoping out the land to find possible fractures in the bedrock where a borehole would be well placed.
While the work we do every day may be different, one thing has always remained constant – the great food with the communities that happens to involve nuclear hot nsima. Nsima is a thick dish made from flour that you roll into balls and get your hands all sticky. We’re always lucky enough to have food fresh from the kitchen, but that always includes nsima fresh from the fire. Every time I grab some from the bowl I’m reminded that my hands are not in fact fire retardant. But we can’t stop to let it cool, or else risk them thinking we Americans are weaklings who can’t handle the heat.
Time to get some rest,
Tionana Mawa (See you tomorrow),



Becca