Tuni, what day is it again?
July 28th, 2009
Once you arrive someplace and work for several days you loose all track of time other than knowing when the sun rises and when it sets. More often than not the days and nights run together and you are left wondering where did the time go.
Tuni is like this, I don’t think in the 9 years I have been coming here that I have ever once sat on my cot or under a tree and counted the days, hours or minutes until I could leave; no, it’s just the opposite.
Truthfully I don’t really know what day it is, I think Tuesday because we leave on Thursday and it can’t possibly be Wednesday as that means I should be packing instead of blogging. I’m going with Tuesday.
Today, this morning we left, the entire team for what I thought were 2 borewell dedications nearby. It turned out to be 4 and they were way far away. 1 hour in 2 vehicles then the one I was driving lost some kind of belt and we were dead; no brakes and no horn; 2 things you must have along with the 3rd which is good luck. Good horn, good brakes and good luck – 3 essentials for getting behind the wheel in India. There we were dead on the road; no problem, just change vehicles, pile in, shift people around, get some motor bikes – all of the above we did.
Long story really short; most of the team got to go about 20kms on a motorcycle up mountain terrain which only 4wd vehicles can navigate (don’t have one of those) so cycles it was and those who weren’t fortunate to ride a bike got to go in a auto rickshaw which somehow made it up the road.
We finally arrived to our remote mountain village and our borewell took 3 weeks to drill as they went 350 feet and did this by hand as no trucks can make it up the road. Tribal interior people who don’t have much contact with the outside world and here we were dedicating a water project funded by the kids at Monticello Trails Middle School in Shawnee KS.
Awesome sight and awesome time.
The remaining 3 projects were near this place and so our day was pretty well shot.
One thing I have learned, when you see a schedule of activities or engagements – don’t believe it as it will change, grow, expand and before you know it, you’ll be a hundred miles from home and out of water.
Hopefully I will get some pictures posted and some video footage of the drive up the mountain uploaded soon. Maybe tonight if I don’t sleep. Hopefully though I can “borrow” some Ambient from someone and get a good night’s sleep; if not, you’ll see pictures in the morning.