JAMBO to everyone that is supporting our efforts to bring potable water to the village of Ndandini in eastern Kenya.
We have been working on fund raising for this project since September 2007 when we first visited Ndandini Village on the Yatta Plateau in eastern Kenya with a group of friends from Sechelt B.C. Canada. We send a huge Thank You to all our friends and contacts around the world who have been so supportive for the last 3 years by donating to the One Village at a Time project website which is still active http://www.onevillageatatime.ca/
During that time frame this has also become a Rotary project spearheaded by Rotarian Terry Umbach and the Sunshine Coast Rotary Club in Sechelt B.C. Canada along with donations and very welcome support from 25 Rotary Clubs around the world participating - from Spain and Denmark, to New Jersey USA, and several Canadian clubs from Saint John New Brunswick in the east to Vancouver Island on the west coast. St Hilda's Church in Sechelt B.C. Canada is another welcome supporter with a very generous gift from their congregation - Thank You again to each and every one of you.
We have now reached the exciting point where drilling the long awaited well is about to happen. This will be a deep well at about 150 metres so this has been, and continues to be, a big and expensive technical project requiring constant hard work and the much appreciated dedicated work in Nairobi and at Ndandini by our Project Manager Duncan Kamau in Nairobi.
We thought that having a blog would be a good idea to keep everyone up to date with events "as they happen" during this exciting period as we drill the borehole and ultimately install the pump and power system.
We expect the drilling of the borehole to happen between May 30 and June 5th and we hope to be able to make daily posts by email when we can (the facilities are limited) during our visit to the village at this time. Jan and Terry Umbach will be arriving in Nairobi (as long as BA doesn't cancel our flights during their strike!) on May 28, 2010 and will then be heading out to Ndandini with the drilling rig.
Ndandini is approximately 4 hours from Nairobi on the main road to Kitui. The town of Kitui does have very basic hotel and restaurant facilities. However, we need to travel a further 1 1/2 hours on dirt roads to the village of Ndandini which is a collection of individual mud huts with an estimated population of 1000 men, women and children. There is a very basic primary school in Ndandini with mud walls, rough planking desks, essentially no books and no sanitation or water.
This last stretch of dirt road to Ndandini is extremely dry and dusty, and Terry and Jan are today (Sunday May 23) packing our 25 year old tent and sleeping bags with some dry food supplies ready for the stay in Ndandini. We will pick up bottled water in Nairobi when we arrive to take to Ndandini with us for the expected minimum 5 days of drilling - we are hoping that potable water will be found and that water for the village of Ndandini will be the important first step towards a better way of life for all the Villagers and an end to the daily trudge for the women and children of up to 10KM each day to a dry river bed to dig by hand for water - dirty polluted water that all the animals and villagers share. So this is just step one and we are taking with us all the support from each and every one of you for a successful water project for Ndandini.
Keep watching for news and thank you everyone for your support for Ndandini Village
Jan & Terry
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