Rainy Season In Kiabakari

Rainy Season

Finally, the rainy season has arrived to our region in full majesty. It has been raining daily, sometimes heavily, sometimes drizzling for long spells of time. Everything is flourishing, green, fresh, air is crystal clear and it is a pleasure to breathe. My water tanks are full and spilling. I brought first batch of plants and trees to plant along the paths leading uphill to the shrine. On Monday my boys will bring two more truckloads of the same. Altogether 1000 plants. A part of the upgrade of the Divine Mercy Hill greens and gardens. After all, this is Year of Faith which must manifest itself in good deeds.

How I love times like these! Thanks be to God for the priceless gift of rain! Much more precious than gold!

Here We Go Again

Rainy season still some weeks ahead and we have just run out of water from our main tanks. So today the order of the day is to clean those tanks in expectation of the new intake - be it rain or the water from the village water pipeline system. Luckily, I have bought recently and installed five plastic tanks of various capacity - 3-4 thousand liters each - for harvesting rain water from the roofs of the mission buildings. Three of them are still full. So, while cleaning those main tanks with antiseptic chemicals, we will put 60 liters buckets in all bathrooms in the main house and St. Martha, with regular buckets for fetching water and plastic jugs to pour water over us while taking improvised showers. Then we will fill them with the rain water from outside plastic tanks.

Back to scout-camping-like ways of washing and cleaning for now. I hope it will not take long till the rains come and we can enjoy again proper showers.

LIfe From Above

Days of fetching water in plastic 100 liters capacity containers from Musoma two-three times a week are over for now, thanks be to God! The water arrives itself, propelled by favorable winds and seasonal conditions as rainy season arrived in full. Now what we do is to put the same plastic 100 liters containers in strategic places and catch rain gushing through gutters and spitting down in fury. Life in plentitude from above. Happy days, indeed!

Nanotechnology Era

Two months without water and counting. A new Kiabakari record. I have no choice but to rely almost entirely on rainwater from now on. Plus driving to Musoma to bring clean water for drinking and cooking - 500 liters each trip. Repairing gutters as we speak, purchasing additional plastic 3 thousand liter tanks, repairing cracked service water tank behind stores. 

Vuli

Looks like Vuli is finally knocking on the door...Vuli is the Swahili name for a small rainy season, the equivalent of European spring time. Clouds have been building up for several days, murky weather, humidity, hard to breathe air, barometric pressure changing constantly...First shy drizzles, be it at night or during the day, for a few minutes, and us running around with plastic buckets and containers, trying to catch every drop possible from roofs, gutters, anywhere...

The Last Day

August 31st - the last day of summer holidays in Europe, tomorrow 71st anniversary of the break out of Second World War, with Germany invading Poland on September 1st, 1939 - as the benchmark starting point (well, we may count other benchmark points as Anschluss (annexation) of Austria on March 12th, 1938 etc.)... In Poland tomorrow thousands of pupils will start a new school year (I remember my anxiety mixed with joy I felt whenever September 1st was approaching, as I always liked going to school)...