Update Friday 18th June

Friday 16th June

Our time here seems to be flying by! We were at the Ark early and I spent the day working at the garden with George. We completed quite a lot of the plumbing work and prepared the pump for lowering into the borehole. George is very versatile and over the years every bit of scrap metal has been kept and put to some use. Using an old wheel rim, some steel tube and an old steel frame we welded together a frame to help us lower the pump into the borehole realising that about 100 metres of heavy gauge pipe and the pump was going to need some holding. Around 3.30 we were ready to begin. It was a sad anticlimax to discover that we could only go down about 10 metres and we met a blockage. The hole was drilled last November and has a steel casing or liner for the first section and then the hole is mainly through rock. It seems as though the section between the bottom of the casing and the rock may have blocked. Anne Marie’s brother who has some experience of these things thinks that with the right equipment this can be overcome so George will be contacting some local people later. We pray that they will have the right equipment locally. Still it was disappointing having worked so hard to get to this point.

Sian helped the workers to get the provisions for the Care and Compassion workers ready. They packed up food and basic necessities and went out to Block E to distribute them and to pray with those in need. They visited one older lady living alone who is now blind. She was so grateful because she had no food and was starving. So Anne Marie got some food ready on the spot. Then they had to hide her provisions because others take advantage of her blindness to steal what she has. They visited Marcellus and “Handful”. Marcellus still looks very ill. Although they live with an extended family, many of the grown up family have already died of AIDS and the mother is so riddled with arthritis she cannot walk but can only move around sitting on the floor. There are many younger children in the house also infected with HIV / AIDS. You can only continue to be humbled by the commitment and compassion of those who week on week continue to provide basic the basic needs of those who are beyond helping themselves and who can get no help elsewhere.

It has to be said that the availability of anti retroviral treatment is very good and there are active programmes to encourage testing and treatment - there are clinics available to all. But the conditions and social environment in which those infected have to live, the high levels of alcoholism fuelled by the seemingly hopeless situation and daily grind of poverty affects everyone living in these poor areas and HIV / AIDS continues to spread.

As I said time seems to be flying by and there is so much yet to do. Bex is flying out and will arrive on Monday. She has a wonderful testimony here after her spell as a volunteer last year and those who know she is coming are really excited and looking forward to seeing her as I know she is looking forward to seeing them. So we pray that she will have a safe journey here. There have been a few complications with her air ticket which she must now pick up at the airport but we trust that this will all be OK. We must get in an early night on Sunday so that we can be at the airport to meet her. We spoke to her and Ben on the phone last night and all is well at home. We will have at least one day’s rest this weekend and prepare for her arrival. I doubt that things will be quite as restful after she arrives. Flash and Madge