Notes from Gumbo & Mirgo
Updated: 2 days ago
Yalew and I went with our three colleagues from the water office and the prime contractor to visit the sites at Gumbo and Mirgo.
The standard of work is sensational, the prime contractor is delighted with our feedback, the water office is stoked, but best of all, our customers are beside themselves. We did not see a lot of our customers today because they didn’t know we were dropping by and more importantly, it is market day and they had walked into Gesuba. But the ladies who came to greet us at both sites were incredibly excited and incredibly appreciative - it was enormously humbling and quite overwhelming .
These two sites were completed about 6 weeks ago and together they supply 85 homes. The ladies at Mirgo reported that everyone is feeling much better (adults included) because they are not having gastrointestinal infections now. The children were super clean with shining faces (except for one little girl - so she and I washed our faces and hands together with clean water in the sun) and Yalew and I thought they may have put on a little weight.
With us today was the head of the water office Tekele, who back in March, grilled me about why I was in his office, what my intentions were and who had sent me. He was brusque and abrupt. I am reminded of our value of bravery because at this first meeting it would have been much easier to walk away.
In June, he told me that in his experience, NGOs visit him, enter communities, and make commitments that they do not live up to - they just disappear. But in addition to that, today he told me that to his knowledge no other charitable organisation has ever gone into the communities where we have worked this year. They told him it was too far for them to go. So not only did we go there, we made a commitment and met it. So yes, bravery is a good value that we live up to.
Today, Tekele walked beside me all day, carrying my camera bag and holding out his hand to help me over uneven bits of ground. Neither of us speak much of the other’s language - so we walked in comfortable silence.
“to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others” (Mahatma Ghandi)
In kindness
Catherine
