Dear friends, dear families and dear all,
How are you today? A warm and huge “Hello” from #RebuildMbinuDita site here in East-Sumba where we are right now, in the rain and the clouds of grasshoppers that eat the rare crops that are around.
Here are some new photos that the foundation and all of us here, are pleased to show you in this gallery.
The monsoon has started here, suddenly all this virgin and pure nature change colour. From burnt yellow and black, everything becomes little by little green, it’s sublime. The locals are happy because the water here is as expensive as gold. It’s only going to rain for a few weeks and not every day. The rainy season is very short in Sumba. For the inhabitants of the village, it is good for their culture, for the rice, the corn that they will go to plant, then harvest and store to make their very scarce food reserves.
For all of us here on the #RebuildMbinuDita site, it’s obviously more complicated! It was already before as you can read in the News we published since weeks. We must therefore act quickly, we must start, then finish the roof which will be made of asphalt in order to collect and store rainwater via an ingenious system for collecting rainwater. The roof of the school is over 400m2, so that’s quite a few litres that we can store in our 5,500-liter tank!
As you can see, the installation of composite wood panels has started. As of this writing, we are almost at the end of the line regarding this step. But here it is, it’s wood … Even if it is composite, that is to say, composed of glues and compressed wood, and therefore resistant to water, we must hurry to take the final step, laying asphalt for roofing. These are large rolls, 1m wide and 1cm thick. From the top, they must be unrolled, cut and then welded together using large “blowpipes”
The two people in charge come especially from Lombok because it takes special knowledge to lay these hundreds of square meters of asphalt tape and then weld them together. It is a particular technique. It is essential to make the entire school building waterproof. We are very happy to see this finished and operational in order to be able to collect this rainwater, but also after so many months, finally to have this chance to work in the dry or in the shade.
We will share with you the rest of the adventures of #RebuildMbinuDita in another News.
There is still so much to do you know: The list is long, very long: Installation of pipes for water, all electricity, the irrigation system for permaculture, classrooms floors, and of course all school furniture. In this regard, our fear is that the people who had undertaken to provide it to us could not do so. This for economic reasons linked to the pandemic. Therefore, we need 75 school chairs, 40 school desks, school blackboards, etc. This will be developed later another News, soon! But we are on the right “trend” and are still planning to welcome the children here, back to their school in November 2020.
To help us, to help them, you can make a donation here. Or make a bank donation to one of the two Swiss foundation accounts here by following this link. Thank you so much for your interest and benevolence for the #RebuildMbiuDita project Kawan’s.
