OPSEU and the Nguwo Well

My brother-in-law, Frazer worked hard to make the inauguration of this well a success. He had cycled at least three times to Nguwo to report to them on the OPSEU visitors’ programme and to help the village people prepare. The villagers themselves had waited a long time to have this clean water easily accessible, so that they were indeed excited over the pump being unchained and the flow starting.

‘Chained’? When I went on September 1 with Frazer to see the state of the well the pump handle was padlocked with a heavy chain that was further protected by a covering of prickly brambles to discourage even casual use. The apron, spillway, washbasins and the pump had all been finally built on August 30 and the fresh cement needed to set or harden for one week before the assembly was open for daily use. The unchaining date of September 3 was almost a year from when we had asked OPSEU for their help to install this well.

Uncle Theodore Saka had approached me in the summer of 2010 to ask for a well in his village, some 3 kilometres east of Makupo. Ordinarily, such a request fell outside the criteria we had been using to determine the installing of wells in ever increasing circles radiating away from Makupo. However, in June 2011, I walked to Nguwo with Cassandra and Heldden from Vanier College as part of their exercise of learning about water use in rural villages. We were shown the hand dug lowland well that dated back to colonial times about 1 kilometre from Theodore’s house. It served 6 or 7 villages and close to 1,000 people. By the height of the dry season in October and November it was waterless. Then people had to go another 2 kilometres to a borehole for drinking water. Both Uncle Theodore and his wife are in their 80’s and they did not have the strength for such labour, so they had to pay for drinking water to be brought by ox-cart twice a week.

The Vanier students explored the water situation in 4 villages and after consultation with senior chief Kaomba, it was agreed that if any money could be found for a well it should go to Nguwo as the first priority. The Social Justice Fund of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) agreed to provide the money for the Nguwo well. This is the third well OPSEU has helped us put in and early this year we arranged with the Malawi Ministry of Irrigation and Water to have the well installed. That was February in the middle of the rainy season. The Ministry hydrologist went to determine the placement of the well almost the same week. However, he determined that the drilling rigs would have to wait until June for the ground to dry out enough for the 3 heavy trucks of the drilling rig to reach the site.

We were also extremely pleased that after many years of supporting projects in and around Makupo, a delegation of OPSEU union members was finally going to come and stay in the guesthouse they helped build and see the other projects they have supported. The timing was perfect with the expectation that after a couple of months of use the well could be inaugurated in their presence.

However, the well was not drilled in June and was only finally installed August 30. The delay was due in large part to the economic mess created by the government of the late Bingu wa Mutharika. Foreign currency disappeared and fuel shortages ground the country’s economy to a halt. His death in April led to Joyce Banda becoming president and she immediately began building new relationships with the financial organisations that Bingu had needlessly antagonised. Nevertheless, it took a few months to reduce the fuel shortages and start turning the economy back on. The Nguwo well was caught in this morass so that before I left Canada in late August it had still not been drilled and installed.

To find it completed on September 1 was truly fortuitous, since it meant that it would be brand new for both the villages around Nguwo and the OPSEU delegation when they arrived. The inaugural celebration was a wonderful event with the usual speech making, dancing and singing. They took us to see the old well and illustrate how much better their life was going to be with the new borehole. The people of both sides joined together in a display of genuine solidarity to celebrate what had been accomplished. Workers from Ontario and the people of Nguwo truly found a common bond in the water that flowed from the well.

26sep12