June 14, 2017

No toasts today. The champagne project has failed. Any attempt has gone wrong. We are in Malawi and the tank that was supposed to arrive obviously did not arrive. So we tried the water we had, but nothing to do.
After a thousand more discussions on how to do it, I was exhausted, picked up the phone and called Blantyre Jussab, the Indian head of the auger, telling him that we have been wasting time for three days. And that’s only because he doesn’t want us to bring another probe and some pipe to dig. A little ‘healthy European pragmatism and it seems that convinced him to get us the new equipment “tomorrow” to be able to continue with the work. After some discussion, the deal is that a pickup truck from Blantyre will leave early tomorrow with everything we need. Will arrive? Boh, we’ll see. In the meantime, we dismantled the entire construction site to bring us near Toleza where we should build the new well. The farewell to the village was heartbreaking with a procession of women who went out of their way to make us stay there and make a new well attempt.When we told him we could try again but not before next year, they replied that perhaps in a year the village of Amonistute will no longer exist … I didn’t know what to say. In the end we eased the tension after they pretended to take all our pipes hostage by saying that they were giving us back next year!
What can I say, tomorrow we will see. If the pickup truck arrives with the spare parts we will make the well, otherwise we will wait. Here in Malawi it is difficult to make a plan. Malawi, tomorrow surprise me.