On September 1st, (my birthday!!!), it started off
as a rainy day. Usually when it rains I spend a little more time in my room
because the village is quiet and I can have a slow start with coffee and I
begin to chip away at the mountain of books that I have in my room. After the
rain had stopped, my tree work partner knocked at my door and said, “Tiguida,
the digging is done! We are ready to start building the faucet for the mosque!”
With sleepy eyes, I woke up to the fact that these men pulled together in the
rain and began the project that we planned together.
Background
Okay, lets back up here. In 2016, the volunteer living in my
village before me piped the town of Botou (10k outside of Tambacounda), with a
Water Charity Grant that was awarded to her. Most of the town was covered
except for one area that is farther outside of town where a Mosque is located.
The Mosque Iman had asked for assistance in a project of providing the raw
materials to bring water to the Mosque. The families in the surrounding area
even came together to pay for robinet (faucet) in the Mosque once a month which
on average costs 2 mil CFA (4 US dollars) as well as provide community support
of digging and laying the pipe to the Mosque.
They were determined and so was I to make this project happen in their
area.
The Day!
After my friend told me the digging was done, it was time to
get to work and lay the groundwork for the pipe. My amazing and talented uncle,
Madou, is the local water tower worker and came to set up the piping. With the
crazy amount of kids and adults coming to help, the work lasted about 2 hours.
The digging and filling of the trench was all done by hand. Funny, or not so
funny to the people who know me, they didn’t let me handle any of the tools....
As much as I tried, showed them my “large” muscles, the men insisted all day
that I sit and watch since I got the money for them. I couldn’t be convinced so
they let me pound the dirt down with my feet.
It is amazing to see what can be accomplished when everyone
came together to get the work done. This is the first of hopefully a couple
more grants that I wish to accomplish soon. Look out Botou, we got work to do!
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