There is a tor­ren­tial rain pour­ing down on Uru bring­ing hail from the top of Kil­i­man­jaro. The tin roof of the Ngowi home reflects every ping­ing of ice, and the banana trees bend around us, their great leaves swirling under water and wind.

The sea­sonal ‘big rains’ do not come usu­ally until late March, April or even May, so this is an untimely but wel­come rain for those who live here. Small roads and dry creek beds will become liv­ing rivers, with water rush­ing down the moun­tain side, gain­ing great momen­tum as it flows.

Unex­pected rain relieves the long droughts, damp­en­ing the ever present red dust and reviv­ing plants, ani­mals and peo­ple alike, all of whom yearn for water. But as fast as these ‘roads turned to rivers’ swell, they will just as quickly dry up tomor­row, and the earth will crack open again under the heat of the African sun.

Our work pro­gresses on the water project after Tuesday’s Uru East Water Board Meet­ing of 22 peo­ple includ­ing vil­lage rep­re­sen­ta­tives, 7 vil­lage chair­per­sons, our coop­er­at­ing NGO and the assis­tant dis­trict water engi­neer. Four vil­lages were selected to receive the water from the Grand­mother Well at Kimo­cholo. This deci­sion was based on topog­ra­phy, place­ment of exist­ing and future cis­terns, and to pro­vide relief for those suf­fer­ing the most from lack of clean water. Five thou­sand peo­ple will be served by this sweet water, a water so good… it requires no addi­tion of chem­i­cals or purifiers.

The Board also made the very coura­geous deci­sion to pull out any and all very old pipes from these four vil­lages, decay­ing rem­nants of colo­nial days, cof­fee plan­ta­tions, mis­sion churches and sub­se­quent hap­haz­ard attempts at tap­ping into these old water sys­tems. There has never been a sin­gle village-​​wide dis­tri­b­u­tion of water here before, let alone of four vil­lages. So the let­ting go of any old sources, how­ever pol­luted or unre­li­able they may be, is a great act of trust and com­mit­ment to the com­mon good.

With action being spurred on by my planned depar­ture date next Tues­day, the four recip­i­ent vil­lages have orga­nized a manda­tory work day this Mon­day. Every able bod­ied cit­i­zen will par­tic­i­pate, dig­ging out the old sys­tems and mak­ing way for renewed life and oppor­tu­nity in Uru.

SATURDAY morn­ing meant another drive back down the moun­tain into Moshi town. Alphonse and I first vis­ited an advo­cate (attor­ney) then con­tacted his attor­ney daugh­ter Upendo in Dar es Saalam for fur­ther guid­ance, regard­ing the legal reg­is­tra­tion of the Uru East Water Board.

A quick stop at TANESCO elec­tric com­pany also pro­vided some addi­tional infor­ma­tion about cost esti­ma­tions and reg­u­lar read­ings on the elec­tric­ity required to run our water pump, which is a pri­mary bud­getary con­cern for this Uru community.

SUNDAY began with 7am Mass at the Roman Catholic Church in Kishu­mundu. Ninety per­cent of the Uru East res­i­dents attend this church, so it is a com­mu­nity cen­ter, a means of dis­pens­ing impor­tant com­mu­ni­ca­tions within the com­mu­nity, and a source of spir­i­tual inspi­ra­tion for the res­i­dents, as well.

Father Jumatano is new to this parish but has been a strong advo­cate for com­mu­nity sup­port of our water project already. I have enjoyed his mes­sages (once inter­preted to me from Swahili) because of their strong advo­cacy for self ini­tia­tive and self empow­er­ment through indi­vid­ual and com­mu­nity participation.

Our coöper­a­tive project is really a model for global com­mu­nity ini­tia­tive, at a grass roots level. And I am con­tin­u­ally grat­i­fied at how the Uru peo­ple step up to the chal­lenges inher­ent in work­ing with our water project (dis­tance, lan­guage and cul­tural chal­lenges, com­mu­ni­ca­tion issues (inter­net, elec­tric­ity, lack of basic resources etc.). We in the USA have much to learn from these peo­ple regard­ing com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion and participation.

MONDAY was spent prepar­ing for the 22 mem­ber Uru East Water Board Meet­ing, with sug­ges­tions for legal reg­is­ter­ing as either a Trust or Water Asso­ci­a­tion and deci­sions to be made regard­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of our water to the com­mu­nity. We are at the point for final selec­tion of who will receive the water from our Grand­mother Well at Kimo­cholo… which is being piped to the 2 exist­ing cis­terns we are repair­ing… and the third cis­tern we are building.

ICBD’s role is to sug­gest pri­or­i­ties and sup­port deci­sions that will ensure sus­tain­abil­ity and eco­log­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. This first bore­hole has enough water vol­ume to pro­vide the daily drink­ing water for 4 of the 7 vil­lages in Uru East, about 5000 peo­ple. The loca­tion of the cis­terns (hold­ing tanks) influ­ences some of the choice of recip­i­ents… but since water can be piped to pub­lic access points… good and self­less deci­sion mak­ing is also required. These are con­sid­er­a­tions made for ‘the greater good’ and not indi­vid­ual benefit.

TUESDAY began with casual con­ver­sa­tion while wait­ing for the arrival of all Board mem­bers. Mr. Tin­gi­tana laugh­ingly shared a story regard­ing ‘ a junebug that is lying on its’ back wait­ing for some­one to turn it over’. The impli­ca­tion was that the Uru com­mu­nity had been a ‘juneb­ug­gie lying on it’s back, wait­ing for the ICBD friends to show up and turn it over’, in this issue of water. I have been called worse in life.. and the image of the junebug with it’s legs swim­ming in the air made me laugh. And who among us has not waited or prayed and hoped for the ‘hand and stick of some­one’ that will spur pos­i­tive action in our lives? So then we all laughed… and laughed again… at our com­mon predica­ments, even as we thanked God and one another for ‘play­ing our parts’.