Well No. 26

Palomita Methodist Church

 Sponsors - May Wooten and Dade County High School

Trenton, Georgia

and

St. Mark United Methodist Church

Pensacola, Florida

Palomita is a reservation for the Guarayo Indians.  They moved to the Department of San Pedro from the Chaco in north Paraguay about 50 years ago.  Do Jin Choi, a Korean missionary who works specifically with indigenous groups started a ministry with this group a couple years ago.  They recently got electricity run to their village and Missionary Choi asked if we could drill them a well.  After making a fact finding visit, we could not resist.  They are a wonderful, friendly and hard working group of folks who love the Lord.

One of the big issues in any community development effort in the third world is sustainability of the project.  We don't want to install a well system only to see it break down and go out of service a few years later.  Therefore, we explained to the group that they would be responsible for maintenance.  The local Cacique (local term for Chief) is Miguel and he has already formed a "Water Committee" with the teacher of the local school in charge.  We agreed to put spigots at 15 houses if they would dig the ditches.  They provided some of the lumber for the tower as well as volunteer labor.  We were VERY pleased with their work effort - everything was done on time and we were able to run the water lines in just a few days.  The Water Committee will charge a nominal fee each month (about $2) and save this to pay for maintenance in the future.  We were quite impressed with the group and their willingness to take charge and get things done.  The cost of this system is almost double the cost of our normal projects which only include a couple of spigots and a sink - therefore we paired the donations from 2 sponsors (as noted above).

After we finished drilling the well, a mission team came from Cannon UMC Church, our home church in Snellville, Georgia.  Along with the team were Ginny Smith and her brother Stewart.  Ginny is an engineer and is getting her Doctorate in Water Resources and wanted to come get some "hands on" experience.  She and Stewart were a big help installing the pump.  We had some trouble with the pump, it kept pulling in sand from the well and freezing up - so we had to pull it a few times before it finally worked.  So - they got a little more work than they bargained for - but we had a good time and learned a few things in the process.

As is the the case with so many of the areas that we install wells, the ladies carry their clothes to the nearest stream to wash and the children carry the water home from the nearest well - sometimes a mile or more from home.  The benefit of having a spigot in front of the house that delivers water simply by turning the handle is a wonderful gift from God.  It may not seem like much to those of us with running water in our homes, but to these folks it is a BLESSING!!!

For those who want to read about the technical details of the well, click here.