Mission Accomplished: Saturday PM

Dave confidently declared last night that he would not be surprised if the system he assembled yesterday did not leak. Parse that double negative carefully. He was right. When we finally put pressure on the system in the crowded basement just before lunch, not a drop of water leaked from any of the joints. This is a significant departure from the first results in Georgetown. But then Dave did this system without my help. Now that we’ve got him fully trained, we’ll need to send him on some more installations!

We ate lunch today in the cafeteria along with about 35 high school aged kids who were volunteering in various capacities around the school and in the community; some were painting classrooms, while others were teaching local kids to swim(!) After lunch we shocked all the plumbing with chlorine, worked out a few pressure glitches in the kitchen, and trained Freddy and Jason, the local maintenance guys, how to run the system. We heard later that Freddy had run a Reverse Osmosis system for a resort hotel up the coast. I think he'll be able to handle this one.

After seeing Douglas off on the 3:30 ferry, we lounged for a while and then had a celebratory dinner at Wet Willie’s, a restaurant on a pier over the water about 200 yards up the beach. They had a special: 20 peel-and-eat shrimp for $10 Bz. We were joined by Mike Brown, an Australian Anglican and free spirit who is into sustainable energy and moved with his wife and young son to San Mateo from Cambodia two years ago. He claims they’re the only Caucasians living in San Mateo proper. Needless to say, it was an interesting conversation. I suspect we may be seeing more of Mike in the future.

We’re done with the work part of our trip. Tomorrow we snorkel. In spite of the early travel glitches and potential weather problems, it all came off with no major problems. We hit all of our targets. We made new friends and partners, we nurtured relationships with old friends and partners, and we provided clean water to more of God’s children in two distinct areas of Belize. God has been with us, and so have you. Thank you for your prayers and continued support.
- dan