Day 10 (May 28)

Contributed by: Danielle

Following local protocol, we went to Bolga to meet with the District Chief Executive (DCE) for the Kassana district, Hon. Emmanuel Chegeweh, to inform him about our work in the area. Last time we visited the district he was very supportive of our work and even agreed to help us by providing some tools if needed. Indeed, it went very well, Jared led the meeting and explained the projects we would like to implement in Yua and expressed our excitement for being in the area and working with Yua again. Dale Gray also had the opportunity to talk about his feasibility study with Ken for Medical Hands for Healing. The Hon. DCE was again very supportive of our plans and thanked EWB-NAU and Medical Hands for Healing for our efforts in the area. He also kindly updated us on the events and developments that the district has experienced in the last year. Notable were the floods that occurred last August (only two weeks after the last team had gone home), which he concluded left 50,000 people displaced and destroyed 9,000 homes. Since then, much new construction has taken place, some of it to replace fallen homes and some is the result of development. There have been two new primary schools built in Yua and the important concrete bridge between Yua and Sirigu (which began 6 years ago) will finally be finished after two months time. The DCE also agreed to let us borrow some useful tools we need for the project including wheelbarrows, hammers, pickaxes, and shovels.

We were invited and took lunch by the DCE at his wife's restaurant in Bolga. Afterwards we raced to Yua for an equally important meeting with the Yuan chief and elders. We brought them the traditional gift of Koala nuts, tobacco, and Schnapps and asked for their blessing to do this work in Yua. Embarrassingly, we discovered that one of the Schnapps bottles had been broken after we gave it to the chief, later I joked that it was indeed David who had secretly drank the Schnapps! Despite this the chief and elders gave us their full blessing and thanks.

With the appropriate blessings given, we were anxious to get started. We drove directly to the Yuan market, where the drillers had just begun their work. A group of people were already gathered there and many jubilantly called out “Yua!” to us as we walked closer.

For me, actually seeing the drill rig working there was one of the greatest moments yet. It marked the beginning of what we all have been working towards for months. It gave me a feeling of great accomplishment to make good on a commitment to Yua. As we were all watching some of the elders would come up and shake our hands and some even gave us hugs!

As the sun was setting we got the opportunity to visit Mussa's house, a patchwork of circular homes molded together to form a large and beautiful complex. Before we got the chance to go inside we visited a shallow well nearby. To reach the water in this particular well they had to draw a bucket (another paint thinner can) down about 30 feet. Although, most of the adults know this water is dirty , they continue to use it because the borehole is too far. We all prayed that the borehole would indeed reach the water we had been promised to see!