Of the Long Road Home

My last memories of drilling in Togo take place in a rainstorm, in a palm-speckled valley cultivated for corn. The steady sounds of a pulley squeaking above us and the water splashing in the settling pit both blend with those of thunder and heavy rain.

Elijah, David Reeve's 7-year-old son, is with us since school is out for the summer. He grins and clasps his body in the cold rain. The water in our two barrels for drilling is warmer than the rain falling on us, but at least there are no strong winds in this storm.

Gusts came only at the beginning of the storm, stirring hundreds of fruit bats from the wooded side of the valley, where residents of a Lassa Tchou neighborhood live in their thatch-roof, round-walled homes.

We finish at 25 feet, three feet deeper than the day before, which is encouraging because we lost the hole the day before. The threads at the end of our metal pipe had worn out after a month and a half of drilling, and the bit broke off in the hole at the threads. We could not go further. But we made up that distance and then some during my last day drilling.

Monday or Tuesday, Mr. Reeves and the Lassa Tchou drillers may finish. But I will have to receive word of the results from a distance.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Lome by bus to get visas for Ghana. I will meet my friend Late (pronounced like the drink) in Lome. He stayed with us in Kara for more than two weeks to learn to drill, and he hopes to implement the drilling technique in southern Togo, in the lowland sands and clays. He will return to Kara later in May to do a soy bean project among the Kabiye with the Church of Christ team.

On Wednesday I will leave for Accra, Ghana by bus. Then I will leave Ghana Thursday night and arrive the next day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After a weekend in Ethiopia, Jeremy and I will leave for the United States on Monday.

My travels are coming to an end. Lord willing, the work in Togo has just begun. I'm humbled to have been a part of it.