Happy World Water Day! (and Happy Birthday, Mom!)

What better reason to talk about this borehole? World Water Day, not you mom.

I'm not exactly sure what these kids are playing in. I think it's a sink. Maybe you put water in there? A place to wash clothes?

Anyway, a borehole is a pump system for water wells. They're really important in the developing world because they can serve as the main water supply for an entire community, like this one.

Before Raising Malawi/NOVOC put in this borehole, I understand a lot of the kids were drinking out of the river and getting sick -- even dying.

Quick research check: More than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water. Five million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne diseases. More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea. (Fast Facts: The Faces of Poverty: www.unmillenniumproject.org)

OK. So obviously, this is much better.

You always see pictures of women walking with heavy buckets of water on their heads. That's because water chores typically fall to the women and children in a village. So, not only does a borehole help save on backbreaking work, it gives women and children extra hours to work, attend school, etc.

I was watching one little boy and his older sister fill a bucket at this water station. The boy spilled some water so the sister popped him on the head. It was tragic! He cried so loud! You think about it, water is a matter of life or death for these kids and families. This borehole is a holy grail. It's located right outside of the peri-urban village that I talked about on an earlier blog post. And it was busy non-stop.

Here's a clip of the kids pumping water. It's 24 seconds.



Just off to the right is an orphan care center. It must be part of the Spirituality for Kids program, given the logo on all the kids' backpacks (and the fact that they own backpacks). I'm not sure what they do in the program. A lot of singing, for sure. Every time I tried to take a picture of the kids, one of the instructors would start a song. "We are jump-ing!" was a favorite. I have a lot of blurry shots to commemorate that one. I also remember a days-of-the-week song, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...." you know the rest. It was hard to get it out of my head (sorta like a migraine). But they are certainly happy children.

You can see in this picture that the side wall of the care center is going up. We came back the next day for an interview with the chief of this village and remarkably, the whole center was nearly built.

Hey, hey! Progress!

We are jump-ing!