I’m a Viking!

My beard is getting long and Jenneli was kind enough to turn me into a Viking for the day!

Not all wells are the same.

Today (August 6, 2007) we focused on BSP. We were happy to see that the bore wells were dug and we quickly got to work putting the wells together. The first went smoothly and we finished it to start on the repair work. That went smoothly too until we discovered that even though the old pump and the new pump looked almost identical there were some features that the new pump had that the old hand pump lacked. One was the ability to easily remove the shaft from the pump. After an hour of trying different ideas and completely removed the old pump to have a better look at it we decided to just put in an entire replacement. Sadly we should have taken a moment to check the pipe lengths as we got it nearly assembled when we figured out our pipes were far too long to make it work. So after another hour we managed to free the old pump from the casing and but the new top on. Phew! The 2nd new pump was installed without a hitch and we scurried back to Ongole to pick up bottles for testing water quality tomorrow.

Friendship day

August 5 is friendship day and it was marked by both of us tossing our grand plans of productivity to enjoy our friends. Portraju took me out to his home town (village) and I had some incredible mutton curry. I believe it was cooked over a spit and the flavors were amazing. Also almost as amazing was our trip to the village, we had a small motor bike and with some effort we fit 4 people on it! I’ve gotten to ride on a motor bike a few times in India and though it’s a little scary it is marvelous to be able to see the country side and feel the air through my hair. It reminds me why I like my Miata so much!

Jenneli had a visit from Bindu and some girls from across the street. They spend a lot of time looking at pictures and exploring our home. We are messy as most of you know and they probably think that all Americans live so crazily. We are extra messy right now as we have stuff strewn about as we try to figure out what goes and what stays and how on earth we can fit everything into our backpacks. One of our tasks is to find a suitcase or at least something that will help get all our stuff home!