Water For Sing Thiang Poullo

I received news a few days ago that my grant request for a well project in another village has been approved. I've referred to a well grant in the last few posts with little detail, so today I'm going to start from the beginning and tell you all a story of how this project even came to be.

Laundry and water gathering at the one well in Sing Thiang Poullo

Sing Thiang Poullo (pronounced Seen--Chang--Poolo) is a remote village approximately 25km (about 15 miles) northwest of my village, Badion. I'd been there before when I accompanied my counterpart on a meningitis vaccination tourney. I remember thinking to myself how lucky I was to be in Badion - 'the big city' - with easy access to the main road and a market every day.

A man I really only knew in passing, Kebou Camara, came to talk to me about a friend of his in this village and their water problems. At this time particular time, just after my birthday, The Appropriate Projects grant for my school well had just been approved and I was in the middle of trying to understand why there were delays in starting the actual work (government interference is sooo annoying sometimes).

"The chief found out about you giving a well to the middle school," said Kebou, "and he wants to meet with you about getting a well in his village." I asked him to explain a bit more, as I can't just go around promising wells for people who don't really need it, nor can I help finance private wells (such as those found in individual family compounds); it has to be a real, community wide need. So he invited me to his house to sit down and discuss the issue and of course to make some tea.

"There is no water over there," he began, dumping a packet of tea leaves into the small green tea pot. "They have only one well - one! - for their entire village." That snatched my attention.

"How many people are in the village?" I asked him. He shook his head slight and frowned. "I'm not sure," he replied, fanning the coals. "300 I think. Maybe more but that isn't the whole problem." Not the whole problem? I thought as he dumped a ton of sugar into the now boiling tea. 300 people and one well is a large problem already. "The well is far from the houses and all of the animals come to drink there."

Now that's a problem.

Sipping the first round of the strong, extremely sugary tea, he told me that the water table was between 30 and 35 meters (98-115 feet) and two other wells had long since dried up/collapsed because of 'stupid men who stole the village's money and told them to dig in the wrong spot'. So water was very hard to come by, especially during the dry/hot season from March to July.

I told Kebou it might be possible to do something about it, but I first wanted to meet with the village chief and see for myself. He agreed and a week later I went out to the village. I didn't have any of the forms, or have much of a clue as to what kind of grant I would need  - as that all depended on cost - but I was armed with a pen, a small notebook and some basic knowledge of needs and requirements.

A view into the village

There I met with the chief's son who is pretty much chief in all but name. Moussa Soh is around 40 years old, tall and extremely skinny. He toured me around the village, showing me the one good well where a bunch of women were pulling water, the two dead wells and introduced me to the co-leaders of the women's group. Over 330 people live in this village. They own, collectively, over 200 cattle, 40 horses, 60 donkeys and a ton of sheep and goats. All of them must have water. They all get it at one place (see the top picture).

Because of the distance of the well to the houses, women do all their laundry right at the well. Contamination from animals, the soap and bleach chemicals is prevalent. It seeps into the water table and is carried in their water storage containers.

Since women and girls are the primary water gatherers, a lot of time is spent waiting for their turn at the pulley, carrying benoirs and buckets back and forth. Time they could spend doing other things like cooking meals, looking after their kids, or taking a well deserved break under a shady tree.

Teenager on the way to the well to water his father's horse

We settled down outside Moussa's hut, tea already boiling away and talked about what he wanted, what I could provide and where we could meet in the middle in order to make this whole thing feasible. Since I didn't know the exact details of the requirements, I explained that any grant I could give would require a contribution from the community. They would have to pay for part of it, in cash and goods. A little surprised - as people are so used to just being handed everything without having to pay any part of it - he agreed.

I told him I'd get all the paperwork when I came back from my sisters's wedding and return to fill in all the information. His job, until I returned, was to find out the cost of everything: materials, what the well diggers would charge, supplies, etc. Grants take forever to get approved and because of the large expense of this project (2 wells at 35 meters and fully lined is not cheap) I knew the type of grant was going to be way more complex than the Appropriate Projects grant for the school. So the sooner submitted for approval the sooner we could start searching for financing. That was another surprise, but Moussa said he would do his part and wished me a peaceful trip back to America and his father gave a blessing for my sister's marriage.

One of the dead wells.

Water is there, if that tree growing out the side is any indication.
This is the well we're going to rehabilitate.

I flew back into Dakar in mid-May, talked to my supervisor about the proposed project and he told be because of the expense of the wells, I'd need a Peace Corps Partnership grant. The paperwork is a pain in the butt to fill out, and requires a lot of information - minute details that I didn't think to talk to Moussa about when I first visited. And the community contribution was much larger than I thought. 10% of the entire cost of the project has to be cash.

Cash.

Something this small farming community didn't have in droves.

Another 15% had to be 'in kind'. Food, lodging, labor, materials, etc. That part was easy to do. Hard part was going back to that village, finding out how much it was going to cost and then tell them that 10% had to be in cash.

As with everything in Senegal, I did not immediately go out to the village upon return to Badion. I had to wait for Kebou to arrange a time. There is no phone reception in Sing Thiang Poullo, so you have to send messages with others that are going there or hope to run into Moussa when he occasionally comes to Badion. But a day was finally set in June and Kebou and I met with the men and women who were concerned with the whole project.

The project leaders in Sing Thiang Poullo. Kebou is on the extreme left trying to stay out of the picture.
The chief (in blue on the left) and his son Moussa (in green to the right) gave me a chicken in thanks for helping them.

Four hours of discussion and figuring out percentages went on while men smoked, ate Kola nuts (a large nut the size of a walnut, bitter and chalk full of caffeine) and made tea. I asked them every question I could think of to fill in all the little boxes on the excel spreadsheet I had sitting on my lap. When we had finally filled in the boxes, and before I left, I explained to the group that if, during construction, more money was needed, I would not be able to ask for more. "What we ask for, we get and no more," I said. "You will have to pay any extra."

That brought on a few price changes on transportation costs and materials.

End result:

We will dig one new well and repair another well (see picture above), which will result in a fairly even distribution of water access through the village. The total cost is just a hair over $2000. $1760 needs to be graciously donated. The rest Sing Thiang Poullo is providing.

Since then I have gone back and forth with the Peace Corps office in Dakar, making changes, clarifications and adjustments to the request until at last I received a text from our grant coordinator saying that my request had been approved and posted on the Peace Corps site.

Best news ever.

The next day Moussa came by to greet me and check up on the grant and I was so excited to be able to tell him that Peace Corps had accepted his request and now we could raise money.

"Thanks be to Allah," he said with a large smile.

"Not done yet," I told him. "We still don't have the money."

He just smiled and said, "It will come if Allah wills it."

I'd like to add one more thing to this story and that is to point out its relative uniqueness. This community came to me and asked for help. Not to build them a road, or bring electricity. They didn't ask for a new school or a water tower. They asked for helped to dig some wells. A feasible project within both our means. This doesn't happen very often. They didn't balk at contributing to its success. Didn't complain or ask why I wasn't just giving it all to them like 'other Toubakos' [foreigners/whites]. They want and needs these wells so much they are willing to sell an animal if their cash reserves are low.

I can't even begin to explain how much of a big deal that is.

With just under 8 months left in my service, this is my last (and really first) big project. The time it will take get funding and dig will take me to January or February, at which time I will be attending my Close of Service conference, writing up reports and planning my flight home. The nature of this project, the true need of the community and the fact that they asked me for help makes me so anxious about making sure these wells get dug before I leave. I cannot pass this project on to anyone. And I cannot leave the country with an open grant. All things must be finished a month before we leave. No loose strings.

Which brings me to the point of this whole epic novel of a post: we need the funds.

If you would like to donate to this project, just follow this link: Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project and fill in the little white box on the right. Any amount helps. I and the wonderful people of Sing Thiang Poullo will be eternally in your debt.

My next post will be a return to normal programming. I've got three new kittens sleeping in a box by my bed, pictures of which I have in droves and will post to the brink of cuteness overload. That will come in two weeks or so as I'll be in Thies and Dakar for summit and my mid service medical exam. Gosh darn I'll have to suffer through pizza, ice cream, lots of wireless internet places, cheaper fruits and veggies and access to a grocery store.

Whatever shall I do?

Cheers!