I was looking back through previous posts the other day and noticed that I haven’t written much about the dams recently. Back in January, February, and March, we went through a slow period of work when it was raining frequently and thus we couldn’t get much done in the way of construction. But now that the rains are done we are making great strides.

We finally got the Dzunga dam finished in March and people have been slowly but surely starting to take advantage of the new area marked out for fields on the banks of the river. I was initially discouraged because though the community members had fenced off the overall area under the Food For Work program, weeks passed and only two or three families had taken the initiative to even fence off their own particular parcel. But my impatience proved hasty. There are now at least six or seven fields where people are starting to grow vegetables with the seeds provided by our project! Yesterday I saw sprouts of cabbage, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes. If these first farmers do well with their gardens, others should begin to take advantage of this great resource as time goes on.

The completed dam, with kids taking advantage of the water on a hot day

Field ready to be used, with goat deterrent fencing

A newly planted garden (note the baby banana trees on the left side!)

In March we started construction of the second dam, in the village of Cuchamano, 4 km to the west of Dzunga (this is actually the border town with Zimbabwe). By the beginning of April, excavation was done and they were ready to place cement. While I was on vacation, I left the work in the capable hands of my colleagues Pastor Chovane and Sr. Rui. Upon returning 2 weeks later, the dam was almost done! Although this dam is considerably smaller, the surrounding land still has good potential for agriculture. Now we are just waiting for people to take the initiative on their fields. It may be a while, but hopefully they’ll get it . . .

The last day of construction. These proud workers are placing leftover rocks downstream for erosion protection.

Complete!

Now the third community, Chonguoere, is hard at work getting ready to build their dam. While our staff were occupied with the second dam, they worked ahead to start the fencing.

Digging the trench . . .

So that’s an update on work. I haven’t been out in the field much since December, but I am looking forward to getting out more in the coming months. Now that we know what we’re doing more or less, my presence on site isn’t really necessary, but I think I’ll still go because I get bored here in the office. It’s exciting that the project is finally taking off.