# That borehole again
The community are without any water source with both boreholes out of action. This now means a round trip of 20kms daily for the women to get water
Tue we drove to Ndikir in two vehicles. Willy drove the pick-up accompanied by Bernard and Simon while for company in the Station wagon I had Raphael, Gigs and Francis. Francis was going to stay at Ndikir to help with the school. He is a 4th form leaver looking for work
We were on our way to deliver food for the month, fuel for Raphael’s motorbike and to see if we could repair the Lister generator. The community are without any water source with both boreholes out of action. This now means a round trip of 20kms daily for the women to get water
Once we had unloaded our deliveries we drove to the borehole and Willy and Simon had soon dismantled the generator and we organised a team to lift it into the back of the pick-up. Unfortunately the damage was worse than we expected and the generator had to travel the 220 kms to Meru where we had arranged for the engineers to assess. Willy with Gigs and Bernard on board set off back to Ngaremara in the pick-up with the generator while Raphael, Simon and I drove first to Laisamis and then on to Marsabit(125kms) – a much improved temporary road with a 35km stretch of tarmac finished.
Today Wednesday Willie and Bernard took the generator to Ali Engineering at Mukatano in Meru and the engineers promised to have their assessment ready by tomorrow.
There is a degree of urgency about fixing due to the chronic water shortage especially in the pastoralist areas of Northern Kenya. Listening briefly to a report on TV last night 1.9m people in four districts are currently described as at risk because of famine. We can certainly see that as we move around N Kenya.
Raphael and I had a successful day tackling the various Government Departments and NGOs on issues of land, birth certificates for the children, education at Ndikir, water and other programmes. This included two Irish charities – Concern International and GOAL International. We are returning tomorrow for some more lobbying of the County administration before travelling to Laisamis where we have a meeting with the Ward Administrator about our plots of land for school and children’s home at Ndikir.
Marsabit is high up and has quite a unique climate. In the morning a lot of cloud hides the sun and keeps the temperature down to quite W European levels. A welcome if temporary change.
added on Mar 19Pray for quick turn around for generator and the rains now due
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