Since arriving back in the UK with Zeph and William the weather has been typically British, we arrived just before storm Nigel and so far have seen rain wind and hail and tis rather cold. On the flip side Festo over in Tanzania is despairing as his and everyone’s elses maize crop fails due to lack of rain. He says a little more rain might enable a sunflower harvest but there is little hope.
Similarly yesterday as we woke up to Red Nose Day here, I received the following picture from Festo asking for help to find a solution to our water problem….
These are primary school children at St John’s fetching water at the begining of their school day. Quite a juxtaposition for the boys who wore Red non uniform to school and started their school day doing ‘Move n Groove’ along with many schools across Cornwall in aid of Comic Relief. Quite interesting for us to be on the doners side and the receivers side all at once.
For the last few years we have been connected to the village water supply and all has been well. The committee that organise the water is made up of elected villagers and there was a change of committee last year. The current committee are sadly not running the project well or operating the equipment properly. When we got back from the UK last year we heard stories of how most of the village had been hospitalised over the previous couple of months and investigation showed that it was due to the village water tank being completely drained. This is something that should never happen as any muck and bacteria in the water sinks to the bottom.
In December we lived without water for the whole month as there was a battle over our water bill (for the school as well as our home) which had suddenly trippled in price. Investigation showed that it was due to the way the committee were pumping the water and creating airlocks causing our water meter to read air passing through it rather than water.
Personally that was a very challenging time.
We would really like to have our own well at St. John’s so that we can have peace of mind over the safety of our water and some consistency of when we get it.
Now being back in the UK just over 2 weeks I am already begining to take for granted the beauty of our Cornish water, running baths for the boys, drinking it straight from the tap, but the memory of how hard it was in December is still fresh in my mind.. Do I flush the toilet, or wash my children or wash some clothes???
We are not asking for financial support at the moment but for your prayers and if you know someone, who knows someone, who knows something about drilling wells in Africa/Tanzania we would love to find out if they can help us. On an average day we have 350 students on site, 250 boarding along with a further 20 staff living on site, (plus kids like Zeph and Will), and another 20 staff who come on site each day.
In contrast, since we have been home Zeph has had his 6th birthday, William his hair cut and made friends with the builders working at Nanny and Grandad’s. They both love their school/Nursery here is St. Austell. Zeph has had a night in hospital and Mummy is receiving excellent anti natal care, ❤️ NHS. Not bad for 16 days back in the UK!?
Team Kanungha 