While we can often get there in 4 hours by taxi, it can take much longer - especially when we are talking about heavy equipment like the drilling rig (that took almost 24 hours) or now the flat deck truck with the tractor and pulling the bowser (8 hours).
Our project manager Duncan was waiting at Kwa Vonza village (where we turn off the Machakos-Kitui highway onto the dirt track towards Ndandini) to fill the four 200 litre barrels with diesel fuel (enough to last about a month before the tractor has to return to this spot to refill). When they arrived at Kyaithani (at the Secondary School), they unhooked the bowser from the truck and offloaded the tractor from the truck. FINALLY the tractor and bowser have arrived! (here is a photo of the bowser the day before it left Nairobi)
The villagers, school children and the teachers from all the six cluster schools were so excited. So was the driver who will be using this equipment to deliver the clean water from the well to the tanks at the 6 schools.
As it was almost dark by the time the tractor was offloaded, the tractor and bowser were left at the guarded secondary school for the night.
Today (March 24) Duncan and Newton, the local driver who will be operating the tractor, moved the tractor and bowser to the Ndandini well site for the first time and are now working on finalizing the piping/hose connections between the water tanks and the bowser.
Stay tuned for more exciting news from Ndandini as the first clean water gets delivered from the well site to the schools! We hope to have photos soon of the actual arrival of the tractor and bowser at Ndandini village and the first water deliveries to the schools.
