We get an early morning start today at 7:30 a.m. as we have a full day of traveling over rugged roads to the Senale tabia, northeast of Mekele.  It will take more than 1 ½ hours to reach our first destination.  The first twenty minutes or so are over smooth paved roads and then we head into the mountains.  The next twenty minutes is over fairly decent unpaved roads and then it changes…..from here on it would be an overstatement to call it a road.  As one of the locals said, “Even donkeys have trouble with some of our roads”.  The good news is that we have expert drivers from Glimmer and REST, so we are in good hands.

Last June, a W2T group visited the Senale tabia for the first time.  This is an area that has been experiencing near drought conditions for the last 4-5 years with minimal rain.  Because of this, they are in need of water projects that reach down to a sustainable water table.  There has been some good news since June, as the area has received some much needed rain.  Because of this, the landscape around Senale is very different from June.  The farmers will be getting a decent harvest of grain this year for the first time in a while.

Based on our visit last June, W2T will be funding 12 project in the Senale tabia, to be completed over the next 6-8 months.  These projects will include some spring protection developments (SPD), hand dug wells (HDW) and shallow bore hole wells (SBH).  Also, some of the projects will be complete rehabilitation of prior water projects that have failed or become contaminated.  Our first stop is at the community of Giramkdah.  In June, this area was completely dry, but now after the rains, the creek bed did have some water in it.  This community had a SPD that has completely broken down.  The eye of the spring is now exposed, so the water become contaminated immediately.  

Piping from the spring box to the reservoir is broken which makes the reservoir and cattle trough unusable.

This water project will be a complete rebuild of the whole system to produce a sustainable water supply.

Our next stop is two HDW projects located at the communities of Girawodlkono and Hakeka.  Both of these wells were not producing any water last June.  These wells were implemented about 8 years ago by another contractor.  The contractor did not have the expertise to use explosives, so when they hit solid rock (and there is plenty of it in Senale) they stopped before they reached a sustainable water aquifer. 

After the rains this summer, the well at Girawodlkono is producing water, but it has a foul smell due to contamination from ground water, so the farmers use it only for the livestock.  

With the recent rains, the well is now producing some clean water for drinking, but not enough for the community.  Both of the well sites will be completely torn apart and taken to a greater depth to reach a sustainable water aquifer by REST and then rebuilt by the REST engineers.  For all three of these communities, they are currently forced to collect contaminated water from creeks and runoff ponds for drinking.

We drove another 45 minutes deeper into the mountain range to reach the community of Genti (still in the Senale tabia).  Wow….what a reception!  

Our path to the school was lined with 600-700 students, clapping and singing….Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!  It was truly an awesome reception for the W2T group.  

W2T will be funding a new shallow bore hole to provide a sustainable water supply for the students at the school.  Currently the students must walk about 45 minutes away to get water.  A group of the older students is sent each day to fetch water for the school.  The new well will be located a short walk from the school, allowing all the children to have water during the day.  The school would normally have grades 1-8, but it is only 1-6 because of lack of space.

Senale is an integrated development community for Glimmer, so in addition to our water, Genti is scheduled for a number of new school blocks to improve the capacity and quality of the school.  The principal showed us around the school and we got to visit with the 5^th grade class that was taking a geography class on Africa.  We also visited the garden area that has been established giving each grade a plot of land to plant a vegetable garden.  The vegetables will be taken to the market and sold, with proceeds going to the school to buy much needed supplies for the school.

After our visit to school, we headed farther into the mountain range to visit a couple of additional W2T projects sites.  After about 30 minutes, we hit an unexpected rain storm, with lightning and thunder.  With the difficult road conditions, the group decided it was too risky to continue on to the next sites, so with regret, we decided to turn around and head back to Mekele.  The day was a great lesson in the perseverance and commitment that our implementing partners must have to overcome the logistical challenges of building projects in these remote areas.  We cannot imagine the challenge REST will face in getting a bore hole drilling rig to the school area in Genti, but by June of 2011, all 12 of our projects should be complete and operational.

Since we came back from the field a bit early, we took the time to stop by two locations in Mekele that are implementing programs to assist women with education and vocational training, especially those that are single moms that are head of a household.  The first stop was Mums for Mums, founded in the UK.  

It provides training to women for sewing, embroidery, weaving and baking.  The second stop was an organization called LemLem.  

It was organized by a group of women in Mekele to form a cooperative to roast and combine spices for sale.  The main product is a vegetarian Ethiopian dish called shiro.  It is a combination of finely ground chick peas and spices.  When combined with water, it produces a tasty sauce eaten with ingera.  Their major customer is the University of Mekele.  Both organizations provide a way for the women to be self-sustaining when they might otherwise be homeless or depend on relatives.

Our day finished with a nice local dinner with the staff from REST, our host for the last four days as we have toured our project sites.  They are not only great partners, they have become great friends.

Dick Moeller