Hard to believe it is already December!! The year has flown by. I have one more week in Maralal before I start to head to the village for the Holidays and greet the New Year in the beauty of Ngurunit. I have a plan to go through Nanyuki to attend a craft fair there on the 15th Dec to sell baskets. From there, straight up the eastern road and then turn off the tarmac road into Ngurunit. A much easier way to get there than the slow, bumpy, muddy way from Maralal. One consideration I will have to make though, is if the Milgas River is flowing at that time. It can be and has been impassable a lot lately. If it is flowing mid-month, I will have to find another way around into Ngurunit. But I will cross that bridge, or lack of bridge, when I come to it..hahaha! Kenya has been deluged with rain for the past month or more, especially in the last couple of weeks. I was in Nairobi to pick up my son flying in from Canada on the 28th November and stayed the weekend for attending some Rotary functions. Saturday night trying to get to the Rotary Foundation dinner, the road through the middle of Nairobi was literally a river. I drove through about a foot of water flowing along for about 5 km. Amazing. Scary. Sunday we drove back to Maralal. We had rain about half of the way, but by the time we reached the dirt roads, everything was mostly dry. Not in Nairobi. The flooding there got worse over last week. Epic. Our Rotary District Governor was supposed to come visit Maralal club on Wednesday 4th Dec but we got a call to cancel his trip until January as they were not even able to get out of Nairobi safely and were afraid of the unpredictable weather along the way. It started raining here in Maralal again Wednesday night so it was good the visitors had canceled and I didn’t have to worry about them slogging back to Nairobi through the mud. Or being washed away in a river.
Reuben just went to Ngurunit yesterday. The rains let up over the weekend again so the roads aren’t so bad going that way. I am waiting to hear the news from the village. We have heard of massive rains and floods through town there. Several houses have gone into the river and now our town property is in danger, right on the edge. So much rain. Crazy!!
Despite all the rain, the drilling rig we have been waiting for in Maralal has finally arrived! It came late on Thursday night. We showed them the site in Lare Oibor on Friday morning and they spent the whole day getting the machines in place due to the soft, wet ground that caused the big trucks to keep getting stuck. Yesterday morning I got the message from the rig manager that they were just about to start the drilling. I went with the Rotary Club president in the afternoon to see their progress only to find nothing done at all! The compressor to drive the drill was acting up and they had spent the whole day trying to fix it to no avail. Yikes! As of writing this on Sunday afternoon, they are still no closer to getting the compressor fixed so they can start drilling. They are waiting for someone to come from down country tomorrow to try to get everything in working order again. So, for me, the well is so close yet so far. At least the drilling rig made it this far. Now keeping my fingers crossed they can get the work done before the end of the week before I leave. Things seem to never go as planned around me. Thus, the only firm plan I ever make is that my plans will change! Haha. I am still hopeful that the well will be completed for the community before Christmas. Even though I won’t be here, some other members and our partner will be supervising the work to see it done up to installing the pump as soon as possible. Then in January, we can finish the community trainings and have the Rotary District Governor come for his rescheduled visit and hand over the well to the community. Such is my hope! I never give up hope!
In the meantime, I am working on ending the 2019 year as best as I can and starting my planning for 2020. Though of course, those plans will change! At least I will have a template to work with at the beginning. This will probably be the last blog post of 2019. So, to everyone who reads this, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! See you in 2020!!
