From Ted van der Zalm Facebook post February 27, 2022.
Another busy couple of weeks under our belts! Thanks to the sponsorship of Rotary Niagara on the lake, our in-house mason, Juan is busy building three new bathrooms for the very populated elementary school in Carrizal.
With a huge thanks to our donors, our mechanical team, led by Sergio installed the deep well pumping system in the community of Los Cebollines. This community was so desperate for water that, for years, they had no choice but to resort to drinking water from a highly contaminated pond. Today, for the first time in their lives, the people of Los Cebollines are celebrating clean potable water in their own homes!
Juan has spent hours upon hours meeting the bureaucracy of the municipal electric company in order to secure the needed power to begin fabricating school desks, in what is now named the “Ben Centre” in honour our dedicated volunteer, Board member, and sponsor who recently passed, Ben Obdeyn. When the power is finally in place, we will begin manufacturing school desks, using recycled plastic bottles for the seats and desktops.
Miriam has successfully coordinated a diploma certified sewing course that will be held in the Clem Centre beginning tomorrow. The fifteen girls in this program will not only learn sewing skills, but also receive instruction on how to begin their own sewing business. If donations allow, each graduating student will receive their own sewing machine to help them on their feet to a new career that will help to generate an income in order to support their family needs.
Our second deep well of the season is close to completion! At a depth of nine hundred feet, this well in Los Cardonas is producing sufficient water to easily support the four communities that will be tied to this new water system. Before the near three thousand people in this area can benefit from the new well, this week we need to overcome some mechanical issues and complete the casing installation.
This week we said adieu to Phil Dulong who spent a month volunteering, doing everything and anything that needed to be done. Phil, an auto mechanic (teacher) by trade, fine tuned the Campo Esperanza vehicles for this season of grueling roads. He was also master painter, master chef, master clean the house guy, occasional well driller and a terrible cribbage player! He even accidentally invented “Gringo Tortillas.” Thanks for all you help Phil!
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