Water

This might have been my first experience without running water.  Let me tell you some important background information.  About two weeks before heading down to Nicaragua, the ministries water pump was stolen.  Fortunately they had a secondary pump that they could use for the lower half of the site.  The pump was not powerful enough to pump water uphill to where we would be staying.  Our project leader was informed about this and relayed the information on to other staff members within EMI.  Within a few days word had spread to churches within Colorado Springs to the point that someone had offered to buy the pump that we needed here in the States so that we could take it with us and install it once we got there.  I was amazed at the quick response of generosity.  So we took the pump with us to Nicaragua and attempted to install it that first day.  Lets just say that we ran into a few bumps along the way.  There were multiple wells on the site so we had to determine the right well to put the pump in.  Then there was the problem of getting the proper voltage of electricity to the pump.  Then there was the problem of assembling a more permanent piping solution that we service the entire campus.  We didn't get all of these issues figured out right away so the first couple of days we spend either without running water or with a makeshift water system that only worked part of the time. The women on the team did their best to be flexible with us who were doing what we could to make things right.  Here is a picture of some of us working on the situation.

After a few days, we got things to consistently work like they should.  I though we had success but unfortunately we didn't.  The next day, Welton (the grounds keeper) came up to where we were working on designs for our project and said "The pump has stopped working."  I was puzzled by this because none of us on the team had changed anything since everything was working correctly.  So I went with Welton down to the pump and he showed me that the pump was not pumping nearly half of the water that it should be pumping and at less than half of the pressure that was normal.  Since I'm not an expert on pumps, I consulted the manual to see what possible troubleshooting issues I should look at first.  After trying all the logical issues and none of them fixing the problem I consulted with Welton again.  Throughout my process of investigation and even now when I went back to talk with him, he kept saying "The problem is here" and would point at the ground just a few feet away from the well.  I kept thinking, "How could someone say where the problem is without knowing what the problem is?"  At this point I decided to swallow my pride of thinking that I could figure this out on my own.  Welton and I dug up the area that he pointed to and sure enough the problem was right there.  During the evening before, Welton and a few others had buried the electrical line in some conduit underground.  This was a great idea.  However when they spliced the wires back together, some wires got crossed.  I immediately saw that and the problem was fixed.  A sense of humility came over me.  From then on, I would always trust the local grounds keepers.  They may not be able to clearly say everything but they know what's going on.