So I said it was gonna take a Hail Mary and it did, but the pump is almost done. I got the Chinese dudes to do it for me on credit once my SPA project was approved last week. Monday we called them, Tuesday I came out to my village with them.
It took two days to dig the hole with this big machine literally the size of a truck. I mean, it IS a truck. But anyway. It’s 64 meters deep. Every meter, they took a handful of the stuff that was coming up and laid it out on the ground in a little grid so you can see what the makeup of the ground is meter-by-meter. It’s kind of cool.
I’m afraid that the model pump they brought isn’t the one I want, though. I want the India/Mali Mark III or Mark IV. Because they are easy and cheap to repair. I am afraid that what I am getting is like the pumps we had in my village in Guinea which were NOT easy or cheap to repair. I tried to ask the Chinese dude but he speaks about as much French as I do Bambara (and NO Bambara) so I didn’t really get an answer. I will be able to tell when they pull it out to install it tomorrow. If it isn’t the one I want I might try to tell him to just leave it at the borehole and I will get the pump from elsewhere (which should still cost me around the same as the borehole is one set price, the other stuff another). But we’ll see if I can even communicate that concept to him.
I have been freaking exhausted the last two days. All I want to do is sleep. Sometimes when I’m sitting out there watching the hole get dug I fall asleep sitting up in my chair.
I guess I could attribute it to too many late nights last weekend but still…when am I going to catch up? If I want to go to the 4th of July party in Manantali this weekend I have to go back to BKO tomorrow (I could get a ride with the Chinese guy). But I’m so exhausted and still feeling ill (two weeks now – nothing showed up in my tests) that I don’t know if I’m up for a party weekend. I wanted to try to see if Molly was down to go, which might make my decision for me but of course the reseau was down today. So who knows. If I don’t go, somebody gave me a Sloppy Joe MRE (meals-ready-to-eat, military issue) so I could eat that in honor of our nation’s independence. That would be symbolic on so many levels.
Anyway. I’m going to go crash super early in hopes that I make it to the work site on time tomorrow to make sure about the pump model. Bonne nuit!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Awful Stuff
So I'm not going to blame it on being a second year volunteer that has had to do two first years but at the same time I AM. It sucks. I mean, you've really gotta have some stones to do evac with transfer. You REALLY do. It's no joke.
So anyway. I mean yeah I've been having problems trying to adjust here. Trying to do my second first year faster than my first first year so that I can actually get stuff done. In a village whose language I don't speak so most of what I do is...nevermind. That's not what I want to talk about.
What I want to talk about is that I killed a dog. It wasn't me, really, but I was in the car. I was on my way back to site to do the geophysical study for the pump I want to put in at the school (which is actually going to happen tomorrow, inshallah). We were going through Kati. A ways down the road, I saw a dog and I passively thought, hope that dog gets out of the road! Dogs should never be in the road because they'll get squished. People here aren't exactly careful drivers. But it was so far ahead of us that I didn't really give it a second thought.
A few moments later, I saw a moto coming up next to us going the other way and our car swerved a bit towards it to avoid a bashee on the right and then I felt our car make a break. And then a bump. For a fleeting moment I thought it was a speed bump. But then I heard this awful screaming under my feet and then another bump on the back driver's side tire. I stopped breathing.
I told myself not to, but I looked back. What I saw was a dog on it's side in the middle of the road, it's legs jerking in the air, spasming like it was having a seizure. We had run it over with both our front and back tires. I immediately looked back in front of us. Neither of the people in the front made any kind of reaction. I dug my fingers into the heel of my hand willing myself not to look back again. And I didn't.
But now I desperately want to know if the dog DIED. I mean...it's one thing to hit an animal and it's another to let it torment to death rather than just kill it. SLIT IT'S THROAT...that's how they kill feed animals, so why not roadkill?
In my fantasy someone who was there on the side of the road went out there and put the poor thing out of its misery. But I don't know if that's true.
In Guinea I was in a taxi and saw a moto hit a cow. It threw the moto and the guy driving it across the asphalt. But the cow laid there in the road, on it's side, mooing weakly. Our taxi stopped to help. The guy was ok. His moto was scratched up. Two other cows came out onto the road and bent their heads down to the wounded cow and mooed at it. It mooed back. They walked away.
The guy who had hit it with the moto borrowed a knife from someone in the taxi and went out and slit the poor thing's throat. I was in the taxi the whole time. I was trying not to look. I was trying to concentrate on breathing. But it was a RELIEF that the cow was put out of it's misery so quickly.
I don't know what happened to the dog. When I drove back on the same route the next day he wasn't in the road and I didn't see him on the side of the road, but he could have been dragged off anywhere. I just can't stand the idea of a defenseless animal suffering. If it's going to die, kill it quick, don't leave it there whimpering.
Do not make the mistake of thinking this kind of thing is rare. The other day my host brother brought a sheep back on the back of a bicycle saying it had been killed by a car in the road. They gutted it and everyone had mutton for dinner. I do not know how long it suffered.
Another time I was in the Peace Corps bus and we found a sheep on the side of the road who looked like it had fallen off the top of a bashee. One of it's eyes were hanging out and it could not stand up. They put it on the top of the bus where it flailed around with every turn and bump for hours until I finally got out of the bus. Later on, people ate it for dinner at Tubaniso. I was not among them.
These are not all the stories I have witnessed.
In the end it is just the cycle of life. I just wish it didn't have to include such suffering. But like much else here...there is nothing you can do. Unless you're willing to insist the vehicle you are in stop. And take that knife in your hand yourself.
I can't do it...can you?
So anyway. I mean yeah I've been having problems trying to adjust here. Trying to do my second first year faster than my first first year so that I can actually get stuff done. In a village whose language I don't speak so most of what I do is...nevermind. That's not what I want to talk about.
What I want to talk about is that I killed a dog. It wasn't me, really, but I was in the car. I was on my way back to site to do the geophysical study for the pump I want to put in at the school (which is actually going to happen tomorrow, inshallah). We were going through Kati. A ways down the road, I saw a dog and I passively thought, hope that dog gets out of the road! Dogs should never be in the road because they'll get squished. People here aren't exactly careful drivers. But it was so far ahead of us that I didn't really give it a second thought.
A few moments later, I saw a moto coming up next to us going the other way and our car swerved a bit towards it to avoid a bashee on the right and then I felt our car make a break. And then a bump. For a fleeting moment I thought it was a speed bump. But then I heard this awful screaming under my feet and then another bump on the back driver's side tire. I stopped breathing.
I told myself not to, but I looked back. What I saw was a dog on it's side in the middle of the road, it's legs jerking in the air, spasming like it was having a seizure. We had run it over with both our front and back tires. I immediately looked back in front of us. Neither of the people in the front made any kind of reaction. I dug my fingers into the heel of my hand willing myself not to look back again. And I didn't.
But now I desperately want to know if the dog DIED. I mean...it's one thing to hit an animal and it's another to let it torment to death rather than just kill it. SLIT IT'S THROAT...that's how they kill feed animals, so why not roadkill?
In my fantasy someone who was there on the side of the road went out there and put the poor thing out of its misery. But I don't know if that's true.
In Guinea I was in a taxi and saw a moto hit a cow. It threw the moto and the guy driving it across the asphalt. But the cow laid there in the road, on it's side, mooing weakly. Our taxi stopped to help. The guy was ok. His moto was scratched up. Two other cows came out onto the road and bent their heads down to the wounded cow and mooed at it. It mooed back. They walked away.
The guy who had hit it with the moto borrowed a knife from someone in the taxi and went out and slit the poor thing's throat. I was in the taxi the whole time. I was trying not to look. I was trying to concentrate on breathing. But it was a RELIEF that the cow was put out of it's misery so quickly.
I don't know what happened to the dog. When I drove back on the same route the next day he wasn't in the road and I didn't see him on the side of the road, but he could have been dragged off anywhere. I just can't stand the idea of a defenseless animal suffering. If it's going to die, kill it quick, don't leave it there whimpering.
Do not make the mistake of thinking this kind of thing is rare. The other day my host brother brought a sheep back on the back of a bicycle saying it had been killed by a car in the road. They gutted it and everyone had mutton for dinner. I do not know how long it suffered.
Another time I was in the Peace Corps bus and we found a sheep on the side of the road who looked like it had fallen off the top of a bashee. One of it's eyes were hanging out and it could not stand up. They put it on the top of the bus where it flailed around with every turn and bump for hours until I finally got out of the bus. Later on, people ate it for dinner at Tubaniso. I was not among them.
These are not all the stories I have witnessed.
In the end it is just the cycle of life. I just wish it didn't have to include such suffering. But like much else here...there is nothing you can do. Unless you're willing to insist the vehicle you are in stop. And take that knife in your hand yourself.
I can't do it...can you?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Latrine Project, Day 10
Wow. Have we really been at this for 10 days already??
Today we finally started putting bricks in the hole. The Brothers Bagayogo did pretty much all the work today because it was considered skilled labor, other than getting water, using donkey carts to bring the bricks to the school from the pump, mixing cement, handing bricks and tools down into the hole, etc… We did seven layers of bricks and are probably three layers from the top of the hole. Or maybe two, depending on how they are going to do the top slab. So tomorrow should see the end of interior bricks, Saturday should be top slab day and Sunday maybe we will start building the exterior structure. I’m not really sure how it’s going to work. I have to leave on Monday to go to COS Conference and it is going to take quite a leap of faith to trust that all will be accomplished sans problem while I am gone. But, Inshallah, by the time I get back, the whole thing will be complete.
Today we worked until it was practically dark. By that time only three of the workers remained. They usually knock off about 3pm (it was 7:30 by the time we finished up). I gave the people who stuck it out the last of my gum.
On the pump project front, Haoua talked to the geophysical study guy and he agreed to do the study even though I won’t have the money to pay him for another couple of weeks. He is going to do it Tuesday or Wednesday. I am going to close the latrine project and open the pump project with SPA on Monday. If there is still SPA money, hopefully Karim will let me know if it is approved before the end of the week. Then I can ask Adama to see if the pump diggers will dig the pump on credit and get paid at the beginning of July. I hope the publishing of the geophysical study doesn’t take much time. And I hope the pump diggers have an open schedule at the end of this month. A lot of factors are going to have to come into harmony next week in order for this pump project to succeed. I really hope it does because I have so many other projects that are hinging on this pump!
So here’s hoping.
Today we finally started putting bricks in the hole. The Brothers Bagayogo did pretty much all the work today because it was considered skilled labor, other than getting water, using donkey carts to bring the bricks to the school from the pump, mixing cement, handing bricks and tools down into the hole, etc… We did seven layers of bricks and are probably three layers from the top of the hole. Or maybe two, depending on how they are going to do the top slab. So tomorrow should see the end of interior bricks, Saturday should be top slab day and Sunday maybe we will start building the exterior structure. I’m not really sure how it’s going to work. I have to leave on Monday to go to COS Conference and it is going to take quite a leap of faith to trust that all will be accomplished sans problem while I am gone. But, Inshallah, by the time I get back, the whole thing will be complete.
Today we worked until it was practically dark. By that time only three of the workers remained. They usually knock off about 3pm (it was 7:30 by the time we finished up). I gave the people who stuck it out the last of my gum.
On the pump project front, Haoua talked to the geophysical study guy and he agreed to do the study even though I won’t have the money to pay him for another couple of weeks. He is going to do it Tuesday or Wednesday. I am going to close the latrine project and open the pump project with SPA on Monday. If there is still SPA money, hopefully Karim will let me know if it is approved before the end of the week. Then I can ask Adama to see if the pump diggers will dig the pump on credit and get paid at the beginning of July. I hope the publishing of the geophysical study doesn’t take much time. And I hope the pump diggers have an open schedule at the end of this month. A lot of factors are going to have to come into harmony next week in order for this pump project to succeed. I really hope it does because I have so many other projects that are hinging on this pump!
So here’s hoping.
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