13rd June 2019

When I leave for Malawi the most common question they ask me is: “How many wells will you do this year?”. The obvious answer would be: “I have collected X euros, I will make Y”. But in reality I know it’s not because if the bad luck gets in the way all the plans can jump. And today is one of those unlucky days. Today we had plans to dig one and uncork another in disuse. We start early in the morning by loading all the material on the trucks, towards Kapasule II. The excavations started and after only 3 meters we find the rock. Change of the probe and down for 51 meters. The whole village is covered by a white cloud (the crushed rock dust) for hours but no shadow of water. We must stop. The usual theater begins with the various diviners who have their say and after an hour it is finally decided where to make the second attempt. In the middle of a field covered in brushwood. The quickest way to prepare it for excavation is to set it on fire … and we just had to catch the whole village on fire! Once the fire is out, we restart the drill to extract the pipes from underground and … SDENG !!! It breaks a piece! The continuous hours of excavation on the rock probably weakened him and he gave way. We cannot continue with the auger in those conditions. So we split up.The Band returns to Balaka with the auger in search of a welder while Agostino and me go to Amonisute to try to unlock the well. We try them all to hook something that is 9 meters deep and that blocks the well. At some point we can do it but … the probe that we knocked down gets stuck! We put ourselves in 12 (!!!) to try to pull it up and the result was also one here … SDENG !!! The rope breaks and the probe falls to 32 meters. Where it will stay forever. As well as our hopes of reviving that well.
“How many wells will I do this year?” “It depends”. SDENG!

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