The tricky topics

Lately my 3 year old (soon to be 4), has been making massive inquiries into the world around him.  His been asking a lot of spiritual questions, which have been a joy to discuss with him.  He is also asking things like, "where do babies come from?" 

This latter type of question can be a bit tongue-tying.  For that reason I am so glad for the advice of a good friend of my wife's.  She said that when her children started to need some explanations about sex and reproduction, she found it best to give concise answers to their small questions, one by one.  She said this was better than trying to disclose the whole topic in one sitting, which can overwhelm the child (and the parent!)  So that is how we are proceeding with our little boy and his interesting inquiries. 

Today two of my staff began to ask some interesting spiritual questions.  This also could have been a tongue-tying moment, but for different reasons than my example above.  Spiritual questions are tricky in this place, and perhaps especially at this time.  Conservative religious sentiment is rising, as is criticism of foreigners here.  This is not a time or place to proclaim too loudly your beliefs or differences from the order here.  In this context, genuine religious questions and discussions are seldom.  So when my staff started asking questions today, it took me a minute to find my bearing and decide where to go with their questions.  In that moment, I thought to myself, "okay, just like talking with my 3 year old about sex, I cannot give them more answers than they are ready for, I only need to address their questions one at a time.”

I cannot detail for you all that we discussed, but I will tell you what point I decided to stick to.  I kept my answers and thus their follow-up questions around the point that there was nothing I could do to save myself, it was only Christ that could save me.  As I found out, there is a lot that can be said around this point, if the questions keep bringing it out.  After a while however, something distracted us and we went on to discussing irrigation flow rates, or panning for gold, or something like that. 

Ironically enough, important discussions with my son are just like this; he comes with keen interest and we talk for a few minutes before he drifts off to the next thing.  The funny thing is, at random times, he will remember the previous questions, and with Interest we will pick up right where we left off.  In this way it takes weeks to discuss something I could give him a 15-minute lecture on.  I'm more than okay with that though, because I have lots and lots of weeks to spend with my son, and I want him to learn from me in the way that serves his little heart and mind the best.

Time will tell, but right now I would not be surprised if the discussion started today by my staff would soon come up again.  I have plenty of time here as well, and step-by-step is fine with me.

Sometimes it’s not all about the money (take 2)

Last week I arrived in M-ville for the 3rd support visit since October. The first visit was made in order to check-in on the project and to clean and prep our new house here. The second visit was made after our leadership announced that our family could not live in M-ville again. The house that I had prepped in October thus got packed and shipped out in Dec. It was heartbreaking for the watchmen to have to watch and help with this move, especially for kaka, my son’s favorite man here. --- Arriving for the third visit last week, the procedure of visiting here has become old hat: I convince at least one other guy to come with me, I bring some food, we enjoy playing pool and eating a lot of meat, and we call it M-ville men’s retreat. On the Oct and Dec visits there were invites to people’s homes, because I had been away from March-October. Now in January, I suspected that they would feel that their hospitality obligations had been served. I was surprised, then, when on the morning after arriving, kaka told me he would be buying lunch for Garry and I. “You don’t need to do that kaka,” I told him. He shook his head, “don’t say that, you’re my guest.” I tried to argue that I wasn’t a guest because I had lived here, but he didn’t accept my arguments. I tried to wear him down by insisting 5 times that I buy his lunch instead of him buying mine, but he didn’t budge. “Go ask Garry what he wants, and tell me what you both want and I’ll bring it,” kaka said definitively. I went away, and tried coming back three times later, with different arguments about why he didn’t need to do this. --- I don’t know completely why I argued so much with kaka about one lunch. Maybe it was because I know how much he earns, and it’s less than 1/6th of what our local office manager earns (and he constantly complains it’s not enough). Maybe it was because he knew how many nice foods from the bazaar my family was able to buy (he used to do our shopping), that he was not able to buy for his family. Maybe it was because I know that he is very sad and disappointed that my family will not be living here again. For whatever reason, I desperately wanted to reverse this man’s will, and put money in his pocket to feed his family, rather than let him spend it on fattening me. --- On the third time I returned to kaka to argue, he took a tone of seriousness and set me straight. “You don’t get it. In my culture, you’re my guest, and we serve our guests for their whole stay. I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t feed you for the whole week, I would not have anything left to feed my kids. I would feed you all week if I could, but I can’t, I’m sorry. I WILL buy your lunch today, hosting my guest is part of me. --- Once again I had missed it. I had missed that it’s not all about money when you have something more personal to share. I let kaka buy a simple lunch for Garry and I, and I doubly satisfied his hosting appetite by saying that we would come to his home for lunch the next day. He was thrilled to have us in his home. I was thrilled to meet his youngest son, 5-month-old Ibrahim, who I had advocated for when kaka and his wife were considering aborting him. Kaka turned 15 shades of red as I went on and on about how special and awesome Ibrahim was. --- Now the only thing left to do is sneak cakes and fruit and meat into the saddlebags of kaka’s bicycle before I leave here, and not get caught by him doing it!

Sometimes it’s not all about money

Every week, sometimes a couple times a week, my phone begins to buzz, and the familiar name of a local friend shows on the caller ID. I call him Tom. Tom has a talent for calling at the worst of times: putting the kids to bed, in a meeting with local staff, or in the bathroom! Tom is persistent, enthusiastic, and loyal, and I like him because of that. For the past months he has been repeatedly asking me to find a job for his friend, Zed. Zed has been out of work for a long time, and he lives in this new city that we are now in. Unfortunately I have no ability to create or open a job for him right now. After each request, Tom begrudgingly accepts this unfortunate reality. Last week Tom said, “Zed wants to meet you, where can he meet you?” I knew this was coming, yet it made me anxious to think of hearing all the petitions of this friend of a friend. I could tell that this was important to Tom, and Tom has become important to me, so I named a time and place to meet Zed. --- It’s mid-day outside the park, and I’m looking for Zed so that we can sit down to a nice plate of rice and meat at a restaurant, my treat. We find one another and I lead him into a restaurant, but before we sit down on the cushions he says, “this is a problem, we can’t meet here, it is much safer to meet at your office.” So, we take a 20-minute walk back to the office, and I try to buy some kebabs along the way, but Zed keeps refusing to eat. This is a bit disappointing, since I was looking forward to a nice lunch. We finally reach the office and sit down, and Zed begins to tell me his story. --- Zed is a poor man, so poor that he has not been able to get married. Let me spell out the significance of this: in this culture, marriage is paramount. Without marriage there are no children, and without children there is no, shall we say, social security. In this culture, children are much more than progeny, they are the sustaining of a family’s name and honor, and they are the only hope an older adult has of being able to retire, rest, and die in dignity. When a man is approaching 40 years old and says he is too poor to marry, this is basically a declaration of an emergency. --- So there I am in the office with a jobless, wifeless man… a man whose friend has diligently advocated that I give a job to, but for whom I have no job to give. Wish you could have been in my shoes? --- I patiently listen to the story of Zed, and what he describes is a pretty awful situation, but he does not move on to a clear statement of request. Breaking a long pause, I begin to delicately explain the nature of NGO job posts. I told of how I started working with 100+ local staff, and that I could not prevent it when nearly 90 of those lost their jobs. I told him of the conservatism and ethnic suspicions in my next project, tensions that created high risk for bringing people from his ethnic group on staff. I told him of the growing risks for locals working with NGOs, including increasing kidnappings. Then I was just moving to the conclusion of how I did not currently have any jobs to offer him, when he interrupted me. --- “Excuse me, but you’ve misunderstood me,” Zed said, “I didn’t come here to talk about jobs of money. That’s not the point. I came because I want you to pray for me, and remember me. I need to know that you’ve heard my situation, and are praying for me through this hard season.” --- The room was quiet for what seemed like an hour. I sat and recalled Zed’s story through a new frame of reference, and was aghast at his hardships, in light of his sincerity. Then Zed broke the silence again, “sure, if you had a job, I would take it, but that’s not why I wanted to meet you. I’m not without options. I could stand in the bazaar with other day laborers and get some work now and then. I could join the police and make a decent wage. I’m not that concerned about this, what I’m concerned about is how to keep my heart and faith strong, and how to keep running this race.” Indeed, in the story Zed told me when we first sat down, he made mention that his heart had been transformed 3 years earlier. I didn’t mention that to you earlier in this story, because I didn’t fully trust his words, until he added a demonstration of that transformed heart. After the above statements from Zed I realized, alright, this guy is for real. --- So we prayed. I prayed over every matter that Zed had mentioned, and he prayed for me and praised God for our encounter. --- A couple days after Zed and I met, he left town, headed back to the village he came from, hoping to spend the winter with genuine friends. I’ve talked to him only a couple times since, but I’m sure we’ll meet again. Maybe next time I’ll have one of those risky jobs to offer him.

The Rooster

The country we work in has seen a lot of violent conflict.  Many lives have been lost in the waves of conflicts, and much destruction has been done.  The destruction is still evident, but it has faded in the 10+ years of reconstruction.  A person who has not lived through the years of fighting can easily forget all the damage that has been done to the hearts of the people that walk this land.  A person who did not lose a loved one in the conflicts here does not know what sort of pain lies in the historical narrative of this land. 

I am one of those persons who does not know the extent of damage or depth of heartache done in recent years.  Sometimes I forget this.  I like to think that I have learned a little bit in the 5 years we’ve been here.  For that reason, I bought this rooster, as a reminder to myself.

This rooster was made in the late 90’s.  It was hand carved from a single piece of lapis.  Birds are a loved animal here, roosters included.  This rooster was carved to a high enough quality that he was sold and moved along to one of the premier shops in the biggest city in the northern region.  He sat on the shelf with other fine hand carvings in a beautiful display case.  Then one day in the year 1999 or 2000, someone who was guided by religious extremism; someone possessed with the task of enforcing his ideals, came and broke this rooster.  He smashed the display case with the intent of destroying all the carved images.  They were, in his mind, idols that were an abomination to God. 

I don’t know why the shop owner saved the broken rooster.  He had to throw away most of the hand-carvings because they were broken beyond recognition.  Perhaps he saved this one because, although broken, it could still stand.  For whatever reason, he saved it. 

For about 12 years this broken rooster sat on the shelf unappreciated.  When I spotted him he was laid down among other dusty, junky, antique trinkets.  I asked about it, and the shopkeeper told me the story that I’ve told you.  When asked how much he would sell it for, the shopkeeper shrugged and said, “take it for $5.”  I gathered that it had much more value when it was first finished and put on display.

What’s the use of a broken rooster, and why did I bring him home?  He’s a survivor.  He’s beaten up and broken, but he’s a survivor.  He didn’t get thrown away or buried under dirt when so many other things like him did.  Still he did not have enough value to be sold, so he sat uselessly on the shelf.

How many poor people of this land have been like this rooster?  How many people were beaten and killed by foreign invaders in the 80’s?  After that how many were caught in the crossfire of a civil war that wreaked of evil?  After that how many were oppressed and impoverished as religious fundamentalists laid the culture and the economy to waste.  In each phase of conflict poor bystanders of the fighting parties were beaten and killed, but others survived.  Some have weathered through all of those waves of conflict.  They show the weight of those hardships in wrinkles on their brow.  They are the survivors.

Surviving hasn’t been easy; those that have survived have not been untouched.  No one can undo all that the wars have done to them, just as I cannot put the smashed and lost legs of the rooster back on.  We cannot quickly make this people what we want them to be: peaceful, world-servants, a democracy.  We cannot do anything with them until we realize who they are and how they got to be that way.  We fail if we view them as broken objects that we will quickly fix.  We can get hurt if we don’t realize that they may not play well with others, because others have not played well with them.  We might be tempted to just leave these broken people on the shelf, hoping that someone else will come along and deal with them.

Looking at this rooster today, it’s not very attractive, but try looking at it through a different perspective.  Imagine how it looked when it was first made.  Think of the value the creator saw in it.  Consider the care that he used in carving and polishing it.  If we see the value that the Creator saw, then why won’t we take them, dust them off, set them upright again and say: you’re worth something, even after what you’ve been through, there’s a dignity about you; you can still do what you were made to do. 

In the case of the rooster, he can still stand on my shelf and make a curious decoration piece to admire and talk about.  In the case of this people, they can still discover and serve in the Kingdom.  They just need us to care enough to come and work with them, and to point them in that direction.

The news

The first week of my solo trip is nearly over, and I have had a great time.  The WASH forum went extremely well, and I will summarize my learning points soon.  For this post, I’d like to briefly share some of what is going on here, both good and bad.

Let’s start with the bad, so that you know it will end on a brighter note!

The bad news is that several of the brothers or believers are struggling through some difficult situations.  One of them has been caught lying to try to get ahead.  Another has claimed that he is experiencing persecution and needs money to move to another part of the country.  Friends that have been working with him more closely believe this is also a lie and attempt to get quick cash in order to pay a debt.  A third brother has been behaving badly in response to missing a job opportunity, again because of lies.  He is not owning this mistake, instead he is blaming the other brothers, and he has even threatened in anger to cause persecution to fall on those brothers.  All three of these situation (that are a bit interwoven) are very sad, and something to pray about for sure.

On to better news:

For the first 4 nights of my time here, I stayed in a house with several local staff, and we had some great discussions.  There were no believers among them, but as I suspected, being away from their home community and in a safe place with me, we had some unusual and interesting discussion.  One of them said that he has announced recently to the rest of the office staff that he will no longer pray, because he feels that god is not close to him at all.  Another one said that he was 20 years behind on his prayers, and he was not going to attempt to make up for that lost time.  These are just two examples of the interesting discussions we had, which I cannot go into with much more detail here.  It was very encouraging to spend those evenings with them; it was great to see that we do, in fact, as foreigners have quite a significant influence on the people that we work with over months and years.   Even people that act calloused and hard when we are in their home community and they are surrounded by such a culture of suspicion and conservatism, they soften up and reveal the influence we have had on them when we have some time away from home with them. 

Another exciting news was that I gained a positive friendship with one of the men I translated for over the course of the weeks’ meetings.  We had never met, but by the last day he trusted me enough to confess his faith to me, and ask me to remember his family in prayer.  I found something bold and powerful in his confession of faith, and hope and trust that his walk will be boosted by taking that courage.

Yet another encouragement from the past week was that scripture stories were shared during our meetings, and the spiritually-wide-ranged audience received them well.  Participants from a neighboring nation (where there is an acknowledged population of believers) included the story of the prodigal son, and one other parable, in their presentations on the ethics of our work.  Pray that those subtle messages can sink down deep in the hearts of those that needed to hear them.

The last news for today might be considered good or bad, or perhaps an opportunity for either.  The talk among foreign teammates here is that the country to our west is going through a period of religious curiousity about end times.  Their leader has made some bold statements, which if carried out, would cause cataclysmic violence.  Apparently this has caused the public there to press their religious leaders with eschatological questions, and that has become a big theme in religious teaching.  This has filtered over the border to us here, where students and youth are asking foreigners these questions as well.   Like I said, is this good news or bad news?  Let’s pray it is opportunity for very good changes in the individuals who are inquiring.

That’s all the news for now, stay tuned…

Gap day

Our work week here starts on Saturday.  One of the first items of business is exchanging the weekend “gap” (which means talk, or gossip, in the local language.)  A little bit of gossip at the start of the week is not a bad idea in a place where we have to be very conscious of the security situation, and we need to be attentive to people’s ever changing needs.  So I meet with the men for the first half hour to hear the gap from them, and then I hear from the women in the second half hour.  After this we have a weekly feedback and planning meeting, in which the gap swap continues.  Lately I have come to look forward to the Saturday morning routine, because there has been some good stories and encouraging news shared by the team.  Of course, it’s not all good, there are also some bummer stories, so I will start by sharing a couple of those with you, and then I’ll share some more positive ones.

The bummer stories of the last 2 weeks:

A few nights ago some guys lobbed 2 rockets at the gate of the NATO camp.  It was loud, even here on the other side of town.  It didn’t break the gate though, nor did it injure or kill anyone, and the next morning, it was business as usual throughout the town.  It’s disappointing that even in a calm season some guys decide to do this, just to keep us well aware of what is going on in the rural districts around us.

There’s been a lot of snow and rain this season, which is great for crops in the coming year, but really bad for marginalized people in unsafe housing.  We have heard of a couple of roofs collapsing in old mud homes.  The worst story was about a house just below a cliff, that was completely demolished and covered by a mudslide, killing the whole family sleeping inside.  This was less than a mile away from us, and the community has been somber about this for days.  We are trying to get a disaster specialist here to give us some training in disaster risk reduction so we can better understand how to work with whole communities to help these marginalized people move to safety.

  Last week, in one of the villages where we have sanitation projects ongoing, a woman was using her old latrine when all of the sudden the rotting wood floor beams broke and she began to fall in.  Most latrines here are 6-10 meters deep, so falling in means you could die, or at least it’s going to be really hard to get you back out.  Lucky for this lady, there was a bicycle parked in the latrine (what you don’t have a bike in your bathroom?), and she grabbed hold of the bike’s front wheel as she fell in.  The bike wedged against the floor, and the woman hung on to that wheel for dear life.  Someone came to rescue her, dangling from a bicycle, under the floor of her latrine, before she fell in the poo.  See this story had a good ending, but because it’s so gross I also wrote it with the bummer stories.  After one of our team members told this story to the whole team, they became very concerned that our office latrine (with an old wood floor) may collapse on them.  I told them that I would hang a strong rope from the rafters, and they could tie it around their waist before they squatted to do their business.  Huh, they didn’t take me serious, and instead went on to fix the floor with rebar and cement. 

The better stories:

Our BLiSS (midwife) courses are going awesome!  The interest that these courses have generated is such an encouragement.  We work in a place where the expectation is that people will be paid to come to any training, because that has been done over and over again by the other NGOs here.  Despite that, we have succeeded in filling these classes with volunteer participants!  Not only that, the team reports that these women are gathered in the muddy road waiting for the course to start each morning.  Other NGOs have started to ask us what we are doing to have such enthusiastic participants, and when we say we don’t pay them, they don’t believe it.  The truth is, our facilitators are excellent, and the way they do this training really draws the women in.

Already, two lives have possibly been saved thanks to the BLiSS training.  One was a birthing mother who hemorrhaged, and the midwife, who was in our course, realized that she had to quickly get her to a clinic (she admitted she would not have known prior to the course).  The other life was a week old baby that was struggling to nurse, and the mother had given in to the cultural remedies of giving the baby oil and other things that babies should not have, and it was not well.  After the lesson on breastfeeding, the mother stopped her other work, sat down and devoted an entire day to one task: helping her baby get breastmilk (first from a cup of expressed breastmilk), and learn to nurse.  The baby is doing well now.

The midwives and mothers participating in the BLiSS course are enthused about what they are learning.  This morning our women said that a number of the participants said they never knew that foremilk was so important, and never knew that they should wash their baby in the first month!  Other women said they were glad to learn the importance of using a clean and sterile blade to cut the cord- they had typically just used 2 stones!

In other project news, we are glad to hear that our simple greenhouse program has been sustainable.  Some of the women that we trained last year have made their own greenhouses this spring, with no further input from us!

The Biosand Filters (BSF) have held their value for the most part as well.  It has been very hard to push them to private market, but every now and then we hear a story about a family that had really been suffering from water borne diseases, and when they hear about the BSF, nothing could stop them from seeking out the factory and buying their own.  I heard another one of these stories this morning.

Hearing all of these positive stories, I asked the team this morning to think about how they can make these stories spread throughout the 15 communities we have worked in in the past year, to advocate for these good changes and good learning to continue.  We had a great talk about this, and what we concluded is that we need to treat these stories and topics not like a formal course, but like juicy gossip that just has to be passed on. 

More good news?  The annual report for 2011’s projects is actually going really well.  My local leaders are much better at reporting than at strategic planning and proposal writing, so I’m happy it’s the season for reports, not proposals! 

Birdtales

My barber stole my bird.  No that’s too harsh.  I lost it, and he found it.  I bought “Perry” in the bird bazaar in the capital city in Dec 2010 when we returned.  The bird bazaar is a story of it’s own, that I won’t go into now.  T’s mom was with us, and actually gave Perry to us as a gift.  Then we traveled through the capital city airport, with a bird, in a cage.  Not a big deal really, we did this in 2008 as well with “Firni”.  Actually carrying a bird through this airport is one of the easiest ways to get through security checks.  The guards melt when they see the little song bird, and just wave us through.  Perry the canary was a great pet, we enjoyed his songs so much, and little t loved to sit next to the cage and watch.  On nice days, we hung Perry’s cage from a tree outside so he could enjoy the sun.  Then one day we came home and the bottom of the cage had fallen out, and Perry was gone.  End of story?  We thought so…

Yesterday I was getting my hair cut by the usual fellow I go to in the bazaar, and he was telling me about his birds.   I had noticed his birds before, but they were hung in a place where I could not get a good look while I was in the barber chair.  This time he told me that one of his customers had wanted to buy one of his birds, and had said to him, “name your price, I’ll pay anything for that bird!”  My barber replied to this customer that this bird had been given to him by God, and he would not sell it.  The barber then went on to tell me about the day last spring when he heard a great song, and went to the street to see a beautiful canary there.  It took him a while, but he managed to carefully catch the bird, and has kept it in his cage since then.  He then said to me again that after God had given him such a nice bird, there was no way he could sell it, not even for a high price.  This is remarkable since this guy is really poor.

So, Perry lives on, and his songs are a blessing to my barber and his customers.  I didn’t accuse him of stealing my bird, and I didn’t ask for it back, it just didn’t seem right.

Story-telling

Today I heard an interesting story, or proverb, if you could call it that.  I’ll translate it to you just as I heard it:

A boy was walking through the bazaar one day and heard a man advertising the sale of a camel for 1 dollar.  The boy went home and excitedly told his dad about this.  To the boy’s surprise, the boy’s father replied, “Ah, that’s too expensive.”  A few weeks later, the boy is walking through the same bazaar and hears that a camel is now selling for 40 dollars.  At home he told his father with disappointment that the price of camels had gone up forty-fold.  The father replied, “That’s a cheap price, go and buy it right away!” 

(The story-teller stops at this point and waits for one of the listeners to state the point that everyone in this culture understands: When a person doesn’t have any money, everything is expensive.)

Now that I’ve told you one story that you may or may not completely understand, let me go further by telling a horrible joke that I’ve heard a few times:

Mullah Nasruddin was sitting in his 10^th story apartment one summer day when he heard someone shouting from the ground level of the center stairwell.  He leaned an ear into the hallway and heard, “Ahmad Jan, I’ve returned from your home on the river, and the news is terrible!  Your daughter has eloped with a Pakistani!”

Mullah Nasruddin immediately reacted to this news, realizing that his family name and honor was now ruined.  He was so struck by this tragedy that he immediately decided to end his family’s dishonor, and he jumped off his balcony.

But while he was falling, he began to think…

When he passed the 7^th story balcony he asked himself, “Whose name did that man call out?”

When he passed the 5^th story balcony he also realized that he did not have a house on the river.

When he passed the 2^nd story balcony he stated aloud, “Wait, I don’t even have a daughter!”

A horrible joke indeed, but when people tell it there is a teaching point included.  The point is that this society needs to think about how quickly they leap to passionate, if not violent, conclusions that have irreversible consequences.  

Stories from our projects

Today I'm going to share 3 stories that our local staff have gathered from the communities in the past couple months.  I have had a very minimal, indirect involvement with these projects, so it was neat for me to read them and know that without foreigner input, the local staff are taking this programme forward.  I have left them just the way they wrote them, translated by our administrator.  Hope you enjoy.

Sakina’s clean latrine

“After I went to the hygiene course given by the CDP ladies team I am trying to make a lot of improvements in our hygiene, cleanliness of the household and our latrine.  We are now able to keep our home a lot cleaner and use the latrine properly.  After going to the latrine, we are washing our hands with soap and water, and we have made a cover for the latrine hole to prevent germs.  And I have stopped the children going to the toilet outside in the yard.  We have put fly screen up in our windows because we have learned about the way flies pass on diseases.

Our 4 children were always suffering with diarrhoea, and we were spending money all the time on visits to the doctor, medicines.  But now, by the grace of God, none of us has trouble with diarrhoea, and we are saving the money we used to spend at the doctor’s.  We are very happy that I went to the course, and learned all this.”

Gulabza’s Biosand filter

“My daughter Zeba is 17 years old, studying 10^th grade at the Girls’ High School in the village.  There never used to be any clean water available in our village, there weren’t even any wells.  Our family, like everyone else in the village, used to use water straight from the reservoir.  The two wells that were dug in the village were salty and bitter, so no one would drink from them.  My daughter suffered from stomach ache and kidney problems since she was small.  She couldn’t do her lessons properly because of the illness.  All the doctors in the city said she had kidney and bladder stones, and needed operations.  My husband died several years ago, and the money which I worked for was going on doctors and medicines.

When the ladies from CDP started a hygiene course I was part of it, and I learned a lot of good things on the course.  The most valuable thing was using a filter to get clean water.  My family is now benefiting from clean filtered water, because they have learned to use and look after the filter properly too.  Since she started drinking filtered water, my daughter’s kidney problems have improved day by day.  It is about 4 months since she needed to go to a doctor or take medicine.  I am so thankful that God sent you to do this work, it has made such a difference to her health, and I pray that you will keep doing this for a long time.”

Deadly reservoir changed forever 

“A young man Subghatullah, 18 years old in a nearby village used to operate a hand cart ‘karachi’ with his father for their living.  One day he went to the reservoir by the mosque to fetch a few jerry cans of water.  After a few hours his mother realised he had not come home yet, so she went out to look for him.   When she got to the reservoir all she could see were the jerry cans on the bank – there was no sign of her son.  She told everyone in the village that her son had gone out to get water and disappeared.  My first thought was that he’d fallen in the water – so I called a group of young men together and told them to jump in the reservoir and look for Subghatullah.  That is what they did, and they found his body in the water.  That is not the first time this has happened – I’ve been alive for 85 years and I’ve seen it happen quite a few times.  A few days later we had a general meeting of the village council to work out what we could do about this – but they couldn’t really think of any good ideas.  

Luckily for us, a guy called Usta Mohammad Hashem who had worked in a neighbouring country for several years came up with an idea.  Look, he said, this reservoir is a little bit higher up than the rest of the village – how about we ask some agency to help us put a pipe in to bring the water out at street level.  And then we should put a fence around the reservoir to stop people getting water from it and falling in.  And if we stop stepping in and out of the reservoir the water stay cleaner too.   Everyone though this was a great idea, and we got some money together between ourselves.  Then we went to ask the NGO to help us, as they had started doing other clean water projects around our neighbourhood.  They agreed to give us the things we were short of - cement, pipes and the fence.  We started the work as soon as we could, and now it is finished – the water coming from the taps is much cleaner than any other reservoir water around here.  As one of the senior whitebeards of the community, I would like to thank the NGO on behalf of all of us, men, women and children, for working with us to finish this project, with the help of God.”