Day 1: Chitala Is Wealthy In Children

We had an incredible day. The children of the Chitala community greeted us en mass when we arrived at the trading center and site of the water tower installation.

Nixon estimated that nearly a thousand kids came through today. They walk an average of one hour to start school in town at 7:00. As the grades rotated through classes, there was a constant crowd of several hundred children circling around us curiously—laughing at our Chichewa efforts, laughing at my name (which was hard to pronounce), and touching our hair and hands. We were like rock stars. We were told that our visit was a kind of “snow day” for them. They were allowed to take longer breaks from class to interact with us, the azungu.

The teachers and students gathered together for presentation of some gifts we brought. The teachers each introduced themselves to the applause of the children; then Mrs. Judith Salima, a teacher and deputy headmistress for the Chitala Primary School spoke to the students about why we were there and the work Water Mission is doing so that they can have clean water. We then presented our gifts to her and she explained to the children that they could use them at the school.

There was a very enthusiastic response to the four soccer balls we brought and some head cocking at the strange looking kickball Craig brought. Turns out that it's difficult to explain the concept of kickball to a massive group of children when you don't speak any Chichewa. Maybe we can demonstrate it when we return for the water system commissioning on June 30th.

The first two levels of the tower went up quickly. A problem with the jack kept the guys busy for a while. I offered to run to Home Depot, my usual assignment. Apparently they don’t have that chain here. A Plan B was eventually initiated.

The WM technicians unloaded supplies for the underground system, assisted in standing the columns for the first level and observed the demonstration. We are training staff members over the course of the two tower installations so they can perform the work for future projects. Everyone was encouraged to watch the first day to develop an understanding of the process.

Tomorrow, the technicians will move on to install the solar panels on the roof of the treatment house, the pump at the borehole and plumbing for the system.

Water Mission began working in Malawi in 2009. They have completed an impressive 67 projects with three currently underway including the Chitala and Liwiladzi communities we are visiting. That represents safe water service for 250,000 people.

Ori and Addie were performing community outreach work entertaining and being entertained by the children and shepherding them away from the drop zone around the bottom of the tower.