It was another day on the farm for me yesterday and it seemed we were constantly on the go but did anything get accomplished?

Maybe not what you’d expect but…

We had Mukaria and Pius (both from Mercy, it is close enough many of the kids walk to the farm to see what’s happening) helping in the morning unload the truck:

Mukaria helps take the fresh water into Roman's house

Mukaria (on left) and Pius wait to see if they can help with anything

We had to take a connector off a water tank, so Bosco crept inside the tank:

Pop-goes-the-Bosco! No one, except Chuck, got my joke!

Chuck had to “move” the gate to a nearby school (they were allowing us to use their borehole-well-to fill the tank to be used for watering the crops):

Good thing Chuck keeps gloves in the truck

Then the tank was delivered:

Lewis & Chuck unload the water tank

But as they were figuring out how to connect it a pipe broke:

I think brute strength had something to do with the pipe breaking

Then it was off to the hardware store for repair parts and supplies:

The more I come to know Lewis the more he's like Chuck

After getting the parts it was back to the school to work on…sorry I have no idea what they were working on but it never did work:

Lewis, Chuck and Boniface trying to get this contraption working

Since that didn’t work we took the water tank back to the farm and met our dear little friend (that’s a Prince Caspian reference) – he’s the neighbor’s kid and knows when Chuck is around he gets sweets:

He tends to wander around the farm a lot - not Chuck but the little guy!

Then I watched Roman and Bosco planting, one seed at a time:

Roman and Bosco-bend, dig, drop, cover...do it again...

And this soil is very sticky:

Roman after coming in from planting

We saw a few (very few out of what we planted) of the watermelon plants:

So exciting to see some plants coming up

then the news broke…the water had gone over the dam!  (short history…another farmer about 2 or 3 kilometers upriver had put up a dam, a very large dam, so that everyone down river, including us, had no water in the river.  We’ve heard that it’s legal, or maybe as legal as much as you can pay to do it.  But it finally rained enough upriver to overflow his dam):

Before

After

While we were living in a trailer down by the river (ok no trailer just a little SNL/Chris Farley joke) I thought these guys were down here just watching the water.  Come to find out they were discussing how to “float” a lorry that had been harvesting sand and didn’t get out before the water came.  They wanted to steal the alternator and tires 🙁  No such luck though, the lorry was completely covered in water:

Checking out the scene of where the lorry was located

But this smile was away from the group, just checking out the water level:

He wasn't sure I was taking his picture but he smiled just in case!

So what was accomplished?  Doesn’t seem like much and yes it can be quite frustrating…I didn’t mention the 2 trips into Josak (the nearest village with supplies) one for petrol and a spark plug for the generator (which wasn’t used) and a bottle of soda – I keep forgetting when they ask me if I want a soda it means I have to sit there and drink it.  Most soda comes in glass bottles and they want the bottles back.  I can’t even remember what the other trip was for 🙂  But the day was beautiful, it had rained the night before (hence the dam overflowing), plants are coming up and plans were made for the pump to be hooked up today to pump water from the river so the crops can be watered and new seeds can be planted.

At the end of the day Anastasia (house mum at Mercy) brought chicken, cabbage and chapatti for dinner.  We ate with our fingers, standing at the truck and we were thankful for the food, friends and God’s providence of both.  What more needs to be accomplished?