Stephanie Ng's Visit- May 2012
We arrived at the well to find many women and children taking water from the well. Lucas had no problem of finding someone at this well who was willing to answer our questions. In fact, Monica Leikaru was eager to share numerous stories of how this well has changed her life and everyone in her community. I could tell by Lucas’ expression that many of these incidents were ones he had never heard before which made the impact that much greater for all of us present.
Monica began by saying thank you to The Samburu Project for bringing this well to their community. They are all very happy because they used to have to go many kilometers to find water which took the entire day. Highlighting the dangers of finding water before, Monica recalled an incidence when they were gathering water from a deep hand dug well. One day, one of the ladies from her community actually fell down the well and broke her spinal cord. To this day she is disabled because of that fall. Before this well, many women would come to the riverbed to find water from these shallow wells and because it took a long time for each woman to painstakingly scoop the water and fill their 20 liter jerry can, not everyone had a chance to gather water while it was still light out. As a result, many of the women would have to come out at night and they would bring the warriors with them because wild animals also took water from these holes and there was oftentimes conflict between the animals and the people. But now that they have this well, the women are very happy and incredibly relieved.
She ended by blessing us and telling Lucas that she would pray for us (the people that brought this well), that God may help us to have more money so that we can help other people.
There was no issue with the well and I witnessed all of the jerrycans being filled quickly and with ease.