Udumulla Village – February 2010

Following meetings with the water board and a trip to Galle (1 hour round trip) to pay our monies, we are ready to start. 

We meet the manager on site who measures the distance to every house, with the last being at 275 meters.  We then arrange to meet the following morning, some of the 12 villagers have the correct paperwork, however five have none. The water board manager says everyone must come back down his office the following morning where he will issue one big application. The entire village are in attendance and they are told this at the same time. Anyone who fails to do so may have to wait months, as we are not being messed around.  A complete surprise,  the following day every villager turns up!

Sadly, we were then informed they do not have any 3 inch pipe in stock and it will take two weeks for materials to arrive. We explain that we need to finish the whole job within two weeks and are desperate to start, so the manager agrees to do his best.  Following another two visits over the next three days, there is still no pipe.The manager then recommends that we travel to Galle to see the regional manager to try to move things along.  Happily, the following morning, before we depart for Galle, our water board manager calls us to his office to let us know that he has managed to find the pipe we need!  It appears that they have diverted pipe meant from other projects, not strictly fair for others but marvellous for us! 

A trip to the village on my own where I explain that we will start work the following morning. During this visit I notice that 3 of the children are at home and did not attend school - I am not amused.   I ask why Samina and the other two are not in school and was told that following a sports day, it is common for children to miss school the next day as they are tired.  Nimal (our local taxi (tuk-tuk) driver and part-time employee of the HAT Foundation) agrees that this is true.  However, I am still not happy.  The children realise something is wrong and sit sullen faced on the wall. I ask Nimal to explain to the three parents how angry I am and that I blame them not the children, and that I was tired but I am still working on their project and that being tired is a pathetic excuse for not going to school, and they either make sure the children go to school or I help someone else.  As usual this was carried out with the whole village listening in, however, most realised that there was something wrong and rapidly retreated.                                                                                                                                                  

I check with the parents which school the children attend and let them know that I will visit the principal to check their attendance records.  If when I look at the records there is a lot of absence then I will stop helping.  It is so important that they realise that the help they receive is in return for improving their education, in order to hopefully improve their standard of living – if they do not keep up their end of the bargain, then hard though it may be, we will stop helping.

I head back down the village still not a “happy bunny” however, stopped by a family who require water, so I take details and as this is only one extra, I say “no problem”.  Then another gent opposite says he requires water.  Ah well, I think, let’s do the job properly, so I promise we will do his water at same time.  Turning to leave there are now two other persons with letters, one is representing ten villagers who do not have water.  I decide to look briefly, and as I walk around more people turn up with letters.  I had no idea but “Udumulla” village starts at the bottom of the hill and it looks like another 15 houses or so at least!

I ask Nimal to explain that I will look at installing water in their homes but as there are another 12 persons it will be done in our next batch in approx 3-6 months time. I ask everyone to meet me in the village at 1.00pm the following day and I will take their details.


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