Of Homesteads and Mangoes
Our team drilled two wells the week of Oct. 23 in Antofagasta, a 47-year-old community in northern Bolivia with a rough history. Fire burnt the town to the ground one year and then the area suffered three years of flooding.
Many residents thus left to surrounding communities, making Antofagasta as small as it is old, with only a handful of families. At least six of the nine official water club members had more than 70 years of age.
But while several club members had hired teenagers or brought their sons to help drill, the old men worked as hard as anyone. Hard work was all they knew. For decades they've established their homesteads, "back when everything was jungles, forests and footpaths," the owner of the second well said.
The community already had two wells about a quarter mile or more from the homesteads, so the need for drinking and clothes washing water wasn't dire. Their supply simply didn't help the aforementioned livestock, and it was a hassle to transport. For instance, one club member's sole job was that of bringing wheelbarrows of water jugs to the second drill site, about a quarter mile away. And to flush out the second well, we helped roll barrels of water from the first well.
The community's two wells are artesian, meaning that pressure from the confined aquifer (confined aquifers are not fed from rain water) pushes the water to the surface. Water rises to the surface and flows out like a spring.
Don Teofilo - our well-drilling guru, who arranged the water club a week earlier - has drilled hundreds of wells but never an artesian one, until he went with us to Antofagasta. Both of our 115-foot wells, four days of drilling and developing total, came out artesian.
Also with us were Kim Edlund and my dad. Kim and my dad stayed with us until Sunday morning; they had to catch Kim's flight back to the United States. Meghan stayed in San Julian to let her foot heal, so she spent the week helping my sisters with their homeschooling. Sergio, Don Teofilo's right-hand man, came with us too, as did Dona Amalia, who helps my mom cook and clean at San Julian, offered to come with us and cook since she had never been to the Yapacani province.
We drilled the first well at the homestead of our host, Don Roberto Gomez. He, his two brothers (all of them bachelors), their 99-year-old father, their niece and her son all compose one of the two families that regularly attend the Baptist/only church in Antofagasta. The church resides on Gomez's land, and we had services Saturday and Sunday night, hoping to be a bit of encouragement for a church that has seen so many of its members move away.
We set up camp at the Gomez cow pasture, which provided us with a beautiful view of open fields and palm trees silhouetted by sunset. The only downside: cows, horses and/or roosters chose to wake at 4:30 a.m., and their stirring often obliged us to do the same. One horse, for example, regularly attempted to eat our tents. We would shoo it away until the late morning hour of 6 or 6:30.
Dona Amalia stayed at a brick room which she used as her kitchen. And Sergio and Don Teofilo set up their tents on the porch outside her door. We ate on that porch for every meal.
Between Dona Amalia's cooking and an ample supply of mangoes, hunger was inconceivable. Each lot had several trees loaded with ripe mangoes that dropped from their boughs. For nearly every meal we had a surplus of mangoes, bags of mangoes. During a tractor trip (which I will relate further down) we picked mangoes off of the passing branches with scarcely any effort. If I may summarize: mangoes, mangoes, mangoes.
Word spread that we were drilling and people came from all around. About four people came by wanting to start well clubs, which usually have about 10 members. Taxi and truck drivers pulled up beside us while we walked on the road, and they asked us how they could get water. I kid you not, one man walked eight miles on crutches to ask about getting a well for his homestead.
Everyone wants water, and thus far, two families have gotten it. The artesian flow from the first well measures at about a gallon per minute by the time we siphoned from the well to a pond in the pasture. We put a hand pump on the second well. That family's barrel rolling days are over.
We celebrated my father's and Matt McGee's birthday on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, with chocolate pound cake and trick candles which sparkled but refused to light a second time. One might call them defective, or at least ironic, trick candles.
Many residents thus left to surrounding communities, making Antofagasta as small as it is old, with only a handful of families. At least six of the nine official water club members had more than 70 years of age.
But while several club members had hired teenagers or brought their sons to help drill, the old men worked as hard as anyone. Hard work was all they knew. For decades they've established their homesteads, "back when everything was jungles, forests and footpaths," the owner of the second well said.
The community already had two wells about a quarter mile or more from the homesteads, so the need for drinking and clothes washing water wasn't dire. Their supply simply didn't help the aforementioned livestock, and it was a hassle to transport. For instance, one club member's sole job was that of bringing wheelbarrows of water jugs to the second drill site, about a quarter mile away. And to flush out the second well, we helped roll barrels of water from the first well.
The community's two wells are artesian, meaning that pressure from the confined aquifer (confined aquifers are not fed from rain water) pushes the water to the surface. Water rises to the surface and flows out like a spring.
Don Teofilo - our well-drilling guru, who arranged the water club a week earlier - has drilled hundreds of wells but never an artesian one, until he went with us to Antofagasta. Both of our 115-foot wells, four days of drilling and developing total, came out artesian.
Also with us were Kim Edlund and my dad. Kim and my dad stayed with us until Sunday morning; they had to catch Kim's flight back to the United States. Meghan stayed in San Julian to let her foot heal, so she spent the week helping my sisters with their homeschooling. Sergio, Don Teofilo's right-hand man, came with us too, as did Dona Amalia, who helps my mom cook and clean at San Julian, offered to come with us and cook since she had never been to the Yapacani province.
We drilled the first well at the homestead of our host, Don Roberto Gomez. He, his two brothers (all of them bachelors), their 99-year-old father, their niece and her son all compose one of the two families that regularly attend the Baptist/only church in Antofagasta. The church resides on Gomez's land, and we had services Saturday and Sunday night, hoping to be a bit of encouragement for a church that has seen so many of its members move away.
We set up camp at the Gomez cow pasture, which provided us with a beautiful view of open fields and palm trees silhouetted by sunset. The only downside: cows, horses and/or roosters chose to wake at 4:30 a.m., and their stirring often obliged us to do the same. One horse, for example, regularly attempted to eat our tents. We would shoo it away until the late morning hour of 6 or 6:30.
Dona Amalia stayed at a brick room which she used as her kitchen. And Sergio and Don Teofilo set up their tents on the porch outside her door. We ate on that porch for every meal.
Between Dona Amalia's cooking and an ample supply of mangoes, hunger was inconceivable. Each lot had several trees loaded with ripe mangoes that dropped from their boughs. For nearly every meal we had a surplus of mangoes, bags of mangoes. During a tractor trip (which I will relate further down) we picked mangoes off of the passing branches with scarcely any effort. If I may summarize: mangoes, mangoes, mangoes.
Word spread that we were drilling and people came from all around. About four people came by wanting to start well clubs, which usually have about 10 members. Taxi and truck drivers pulled up beside us while we walked on the road, and they asked us how they could get water. I kid you not, one man walked eight miles on crutches to ask about getting a well for his homestead.
Everyone wants water, and thus far, two families have gotten it. The artesian flow from the first well measures at about a gallon per minute by the time we siphoned from the well to a pond in the pasture. We put a hand pump on the second well. That family's barrel rolling days are over.
We celebrated my father's and Matt McGee's birthday on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, with chocolate pound cake and trick candles which sparkled but refused to light a second time. One might call them defective, or at least ironic, trick candles.
posted by El Peregrino at
9:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home