Repairing Hand Pumps (Day 3)

Today we got an early start and headed for the SHIP base of operations, and I am so glad we did.  Every day before the SHIP workers have a group devotions.  This consists of singing prais and worship to our God and then one of the workers shares a message of encouragement through scripture.  When the singing began the 5 of us were blown away.  If you ever wanted a soundtrack for your trip to Africa this was it.  Some songs were sung in Bemba, their tribes language, and some in English, but it was the spirit and heart of the songs that would give you chills.  Then a young man began to share from 1 Corinthians 13 and telling all present that we must be about love.  He encouraged that SHIP can help the poor and needy (for the record many of the workers at SHIP would be classified as very poor) but if they don't have love they are as Paul said nothing but a clanging symbol.  

For me it showed another aspect of Seeds of Hope, that even though we as Americans are here to help and many back home are helping, here is the fruit of our giving.  That we can give so that Zambians can help Zambians.  For the most part I am a faceless contributor to this cause of providing clean water in Africa, but the people here are the real difference makers.  The hands that God uses to touch and save lives.  The face of love and hope to those that need it most.

Team Thorn with Seeds of Hope Staff

After devotions we spent the next 2 hours making Bio-sand filters with our teacher Sampson.  This consisted of hand mixing the concrete and pouring it in the molds with the shovels.  

I have a feeling we were incredibly slow as new recruits, but Sampson was kind enough to humor us and just keep smiling as we worked.  The job of making the filters is normally done by the women workers and those women could run circles around us in filter making that's for sure.  In the end we ended up making 2 filters.


Speaking of the women, the amount of work and the strength of Zambian women is very impressive.  Something I still watch with awe is they way many women carry things on their heads, many times without the use of their hands.  Baskets of supplies, boxes and most impressive is the carrying of water containers.  I mean how do you do that while the water is sloshing around?  Just amazing skill.

When our work was done  with the filters we hopped in the back of a flat bed along with yesterdays pump repair class and headed for the rural areas to fix a couple of hand pumps that were out of commission.  Both of these pumps had not worked in a few years.  One village had lost all their surrounding crop.

Seeing as how this was continuing education for the class team Thorn hung back and just observed.  This however gave us a great chance to interact with the curious children that had come over from the surrounding huts and homes.  We had a bit of a realization as we handed out balls and frisbees and that's that these kids might only have one toy at home if any.  All of these children were shoeless and only one of them had a toy with them.  A beautiful little girl with a big smile and an infectious laugh had a chipped up dirty rubber bouncy ball.  

 
 I hope I never forget her.  Not because of the rag dress she wore or how poor she seemed to my eyes, but for her spirit, her joy, her laugh and her eyes that seemed to tell us about her even though we did not speak the same language.  

 After repairing each pump there was a great celebration from the workers with singing and applause.  Seeing the water flow from a previously broken pump was  a emotional feeling for me.  I think one of the workers said it best when he called out, "water is life". 

 Overall it was an incredible day of work and interaction with our new friends, the kids in the villages and the students that we rode in the truck with.  Sitting 2-3 hours in the back of that flat bed truck accomplished 2 things, hurting butts  and lots of time to interact with the students.  I think they were as curious of us as we are of them.  Hopefully tomorrow brings as much as today.