The Big Day --- The Digger Arrived!

Wednesday 17th

The digger arrived at the village. We were expecting a big digger but half a medium size digger came instead! What does half a digger look like? Well no top cab at all, no engine cover and a plastic water butt for fuel.  However, it started well and dug approx 20 metres in 45 mins, marvellous.  

Our delight was short lived however, the ground is now much harder and the digger is not a man enough for the job. A quick recalculation and it works out that it will take 30 hours to dig – DISASTER, as we pay by the hour! At around 4PM, Nimal phones a different company with a real JCB --success, this will arrive at 8AM tomorrow.

The following day Mark and I arrive at about 8.00am and the JCB arrives shortly after. Problem! It won’t fit up the narrow access path. The wheels of the digger are up the bank on one side and on the edge on the other. The driver phones his boss as he does not want to make the decision to carry on.  However, the boss says carry on and the JCB inches very slowly and finally success!  He starts to dig and it is obvious the job will be done in no time at all.

We leave and I say to tell the other persons requiring water that we will meet at 5.00pm not 1.00pm.

We call back about 6 hours later and he has only 40 meters left - the whole job dug in about  7 hours – fantastic!  We pay the man 12,600 rs about £73, however Mark insists on giving him a 1000rs tip equal to a day’s wages.  “Crazy, but I am overruled”.

 That evening Mark and I returned to see the other villagers who require water. Originally, I was going to ask the girls (Deb & Fiona ) to take details, but decided against this in case the meeting got heated.  We arrived at 5pm and set up camp at a neighbour’s house.  A very large welcome committee greeted us, however, all was conducted very peacefully and we took the names of many, all of who live in Udumulla.

Following this, I explained that there were a large amount of applications which would cost us over 1 million rs.  However, we believe everyone should have the right to clean running water and we will eventually fit water into their homes, but it could take up to two years.  Everyone left happy and we left for our well deserved evening meal.

The following day we had to go back to the water board where we needed to meet with everyone from the village to sign papers.  The next day, the water board and 6 employees turn up and soon start laying the pipe which is fed along the path by all of the villagers.

Not only were their tools extremely blunt,  they had a tub of glue to join the pipes together, where they had to borrow a toothbrush, as they did not have a brush to apply the solvent – most amusing!

Everyone joined in, including women, young and old and all worked very hard.  It was a fantastic community event.  In approx 90 mins 160 meters of pipe was laid.  The pipe runs out and so we must order more and make another visit the water board to pay the bill – nothing is ever straight forward in Sri Lanka!

We arrive at water board and he says still awaiting quotations which could take a long time.

However, as usual we insist on finishing the project before we leave.  Finally we managed to arrange to meet with the head man in Gallle who will give us quote to pay.  Mark kindly offers to go so I can have my first dive, as so far  I have been too busy.  He pays 298,000.00rs about £1700 to pay for the extra pipe and the connection fee for the extra 12 houses.

A day or so passes and we have only two days left.  Another meeting with water board and he confirms that we should have water into everyone's home on the day we leave. (Good job, we leave at 10.00pm).

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