Day 9 - Tuesday February 26

Today was a bad day. We went to our village to start marking the locations for the footings and we were told that apparently where our original well is located is on private property - apparently the owner gave the villagers an easement to place only a well on this property. Clearly this is something our team should have been told by the previous site assessment team. This is a big issue, and nothing should have been done on this land without consent of all parties. So basically we cannot construct our project in this area. The villagers had located what they considered to be a viable alternative location, however, we wondered if we would have the same issue with landrights in this location. Apparently this land where they would like to construct the project is on the Kapu's land, however, we were told by our Rotary contact that we cannot do anything until he gives the go ahead. It was really a very sad situation, because we don't have a proper translator and we had to tell the villagers somehow that we couldn't start today. They were so excited to start the project, they offered to start digging a new well right away and we had to tell them that they had to wait. The look of disappointment on their faces was heartbreaking. Yeah, it was not a good day. We also had to call the contractor that we had managed to line up through the help of ASSIST and tell them to stop work. They had already purchased the equipment and started cutting the rebar, but our Rotary donor told us to tell them to stop until he gives us his ok. This is a tough situation because he did not give us any funds for this project (he is holding the money) and everything was able to be purchased on credit because these people were trying to help us get this project done.

So instead of sitting idle while we waited for the determination of whether we could build in this new location, we set out to find vendors for the remaining equipment that we needed. Our Rotary donor in Hyderabad wanted us to get several quotes for everything we purchased, which is extremely difficult because 1) we don't speak telugu and spend about an hour miming things to get people to understand and 2) this is a very small place and it is VERY limited as to what you can buy here. If you can find things at all, you need to count yourself lucky. For instance, there is only one pipe shop. We were having difficulties finding a PVC liner for our wetland (we spent all of Monday evening going from shop to shop), but as we were driving back from the village we saw a tarp and we had our driver stop. We got out of the car and pointed at the tarp and we finally managed to make him understand that we wanted the name for this type of material. We then managed to communicate that we would like to buy this type of material (the driver speaks a little english), and he took us to several stores. Success! We found a PVC type material that would work! It is a little thin, so we decided to purchase two to make up for this issue. And then directly across the street we found material that would be useful for a screen and then other rebar type materials that would be useful if we had to extend the pad. So amazingly enough, this was our most successful day of material procurement (we had been searching everyday for materials after we returned from the village). We took the name for all of these shops, because our Rotary donor will not allow us to purchase anything until we have his approval. We were not given an advance, so we have to wait to purchase all of our equipment until gives the ok and releases the funds.

All in all, a very tough day. I'm hoping tomorrow is better.