The village men built a sunscreen for us yesterday. It was a lifesaver. Doing all that work with the Central American sun beating down on us would have been a nightmare.
Gloria added a fetching bubble wrap skirt to her ensemble today to keep drilling fluid from splashing down inside her boots.
With the hole drilled and reamed, it was time to drop in 20-foot sections of PVC casing. That unfortunately meant adios to our sunscreen.
Gratuitous shot of me working. Really doesn't add anything to the narrative.
Two native Guatemalans -- Abel and Florentine -- worked with us and provide long-term support to the villagers. Florentine is 60 years old with five children, 22 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. So if I'm still doing this sort of thing in 20 years I'll be almost as impressive as him. I don't think any kids of Zak's will have kids of their own by then, though.
We pulled some "bad" water off the top with a pretty slick little pulley system that just involved dropping in a small section of pipe and pulling it back out. Water pressure somehow kept it full. Pretty good deltoid workout, too.
Then...water!
Word must have spread fast, because pretty soon just about the whole village was there. The pastor spoke while the kids pretended to listen...sort of like back home (sorry, Duane).
And what better way to celebrate than with a HUGE string of firecrackers hung from a tree...
...and Pepsi! Again, it's kind of amazing what they DO have considering they don't have clean water.
Six-year-old Fernando and I hit it off pretty well. Our first night there he was punching other kids who tried to get close to me and telling them in no uncertain terms, "Esteban es MI amigo!" I told him it was OK -- I could be everybody's amigo. :)
As the sun set and kids played, the mood was good. We had finished well ahead of schedule (get it? "Well" ahead of schedule?), and were going to set our sights on putting in another well in a different village starting tomorrow.Other entries:
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