Water Project

Nothing comes easy here, that’s for sure. If I hadn’t learned the lesson already, Cameroon sure seems to be doing its best to reinforce it now. This week I had all the pipes and plumbing parts for the Nzimbeng water project delivered. A man brought them to the closest large town, which is still about 30 km away. It was up to me to find transport to my village. Things seemed to be off to a good start— the man delivered everything the day he said he would, I was able to buy all the other materials needed in the town, and the Chief even bought me lunch. Now, all I needed to do was find a vehicle to carry the pipes and parts and cement. I saw a big truck that normally carries cocoa and has to go all the way past my village. It was perfect! He could carry my things and drop them in my village on the way. I spoke with the “moto boy” (the man responsible for making deals, loading and unloading materials, and serving as the general assistant to the driver) and struck a deal. He agreed to take everything for a good price and went off to the hardware store to start loading to truck. He would also be carrying some dry goods and things to a store owner in my village. They loaded those things first, then put all 30 bags of cement into the truck, added more things for the shop, and all that remained were the pipes. I was starting to feel really good about things, it seemed too easy! Just then, the driver of the truck comes stumbling up, raging drunk. He had clearly just been sitting at the bar all morning. He was not a calm or quiet drunk. Nor was he rational. He came up, shouting about time, and demanded that they unload the things for the shop owner. Everyone was very confused and all the poor men who had just labored to load those things tried to speak up to reason with him. He wasn’t having any of it. He began shouting that it wasn’t enough money. They called the shop owner and he agreed to pay more without a problem. The driver still began shouting that they should remove the supplies. Everyone was shouting at him, begging him to just take the stuff. But he was determined. He forced them to unload everything, including all of my water project materials. As he was shouting at them over and over to “unload the cement” he turns to me and says, “Don’t worry, I will take your cement.” I pointed out the irrationality of his statement, but it didn’t really matter. They unloaded every single item from the truck, and once that was finished, the man drove away, with an empty vehicle. He went empty all the way to his destination, losing out on nearly $200. At that point, I had spent all day trying to send the materials up, and no cars were left. It was very disappointing. Luckily, I found another truck the next day, one without a crazy driver, and all of the supplies made it to the village.

With those materials, we will construct the tank and filter. The community has already dug the pipeline through their village and cleared and dug an area for the water storage tank. Everything is ready for construction! Unfortunately, the latest person hired failed to show up this past weekend. We'll try someone new and hopefully that person will come to work next week. It was still worth our efforts to go out to the village, however, because the head engineer had the chance to finish mapping out the pipeline and found a good site for the catchment area. And the community was as dedicated and hospitable as ever. They fed me seven meals in one day, three of which were back-to-back-to-back. Literally, one Ma would bring out a spread of food, clear it away, and the next Ma would enter with her own meal. So other than being uncomfortably full, the weekend was a success!