Well day 4 didn’t start out well for this blogger. Initially
it looked like something I ate decided to run out of my body. I was a little
worried given all of the horror stories I’ve heard through the years about
digestive issues in a foreign country. Fortunately, for me, I am married to the
pharmacy queen. Between prescription strength Imodium and prayer, things turned
around quickly.
Devotions began at 6am. The Living Water team (who are
Honduran nationals) love to worship. It’s quite convenient that I came with a
worship team; worship with music and the Word, followed by breakfast.
After our daily trek to Nueve Mendes, we started the morning
by reaming out the final 100 feet of the borehole. The last 30 feet were tortuously slow.
Because the aquifer is gravel based it was slow going to say the least. I found
out last night that one of the other purposes of “Midnight” (see yesterday if
you need to catch up) was to help the sediment raise to the surface. It’s
viscosity is thicker than water. Water alone would never raise the gravel.
Lunch found us ready for the next step: casing the well. The
process is to put 20 foot lengths of PVC pipe at a time down the hole. If all
goes well, you only have to do it once. Otherwise, if there’s been a cave in,
you have to take it all out and completely ream the 150 feet again.
It didn’t go well (no pun intended). We pulled it out, and
started again. It was a little demoralizing, but not unusual in these cases.
By this point the sun had come out…ISH. It was warming up. Though
I drank a gallon of water through the morning, I began to feel the effects of
mild dehydration and had to sit down for a while to reinvigorate my body.
Can I say I am so proud of my son, Josh. He is almost 16. He
has worked like a man this entire trip, cheerfully and uncomplaining, keeping
up with us dudes (of course, it was pretty easy to keep up with me this
afternoon).
Because we had to start again, we were told that we would be
working late, probably until about 7pm.
The second time we began casing the well we all were more
engergized. This was it. It had to be…none of us had the strength for more. We
all agree, we can’t remember when we’ve worked this hard. We have easy lives in
America.
After casing the well we had to flush out the slurry and the
remnants of the dirt and gravel, which had a thick consistency. At times it
almost looked like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka’s factory.
While we were doing this, the men finally had some time to
talk a little more indepth with the locals. I talked to Bartajal. I asked him
what clean water meant to his village. The thing that stuck most with me was
his comment that during the dry season, sometimes they would go five days
without water.
The women continue to do great: children in the morning and
even more women in the afternoon.
Tonight I get to have a REAL AMERICAN DIET COKE. I packed it
in my carry on from Houston. Praise Jesus!
Sorry there are no pictures. The internet is lazy and
spotty, and we haven’t been at the hotel long enough each day to wait…wait…wait…
I’ll update you tomorrow.
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