Digging Sand from a River Bed for Clean Water, Bohong, CAR

Last week, the Lutheran Water Management Project (known as PASE for its French acronym) began construction of three spring boxes in Bohong, located in northwestern Central African Republic. After the violence and insecurity of the past several years, many internally displaced persons and returned refugees have settled in this region.  Bohong is about 5 hours northeast of our office, so logistics are a bit complicated as cement and wood for formwork are not locally available.

 

We needed sand to construct the spring box in the Mbeyeng neighborhood, so I drove the villagers 12 miles south of town to the Ouham river, which is normally a braided stream with lots of exposed sand bars. However, the river was in flood from recent rains. So the villagers waded into the stream until they were chest-deep and shoveled sand into buckets that other men held just out of the water and then carried to the shore (see photowere through, they were understandably cold and tired; but they still sang all the way back into town (about a 45 minute ride).

 

The hard work and dedication of these men clearly indicate the value they place on clean water. Your prayers and contributions help us to help them help themselves.

 

This work is supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) through their Global Mission and World Hunger Fund programs.  To find out how you can help, contact Rev. Twila Schock, Global Mission and Development Services, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.  Or e-mail her at Twila.Schock@elca.org.  Checks may be made out to ELCA-GM.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Villagers from the Mbeyeng neighborhood of Bohong, mining sand by hand from the bed of the flooded Ouham river south of Bohong, Central African Republic. The sand was used to construct a spring box to provide clean water for their neighborhood.  

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon.

 

Clean Drinking Water for Yongmondere, CAR

Along the main dirt road from Cameroon to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), sits the village of Yongmondere, home to some two hundred people. Until now their only source of water has been a little spring where the water trickled out in several places. It took a long time and a lot of patience for villagers to fill a small container.  For over a year, the village chief of Yongmondere has been asking the Lutheran Water Management Project (Known as PASE for its French acronym) for help with potable water in his village.

 

Last week, PASE began construction of a spring box in Yongmondere and finished the work in less than a week.  The work went faster than expected partly because the women of the village helped by carrying the sand and rocks to the spring on their heads.  The villagers are very pleased with the results.  The concrete slab and pipe make it is much easier and cleaner for them to fill their buckets. Managing the spring increased the available flow to over 8 gallons per minute. This means they can now fill a 5 gallon bucket in less than a minute. 

 

Sustainable development projects such as this–the spring box has no moving parts and will require no repairs perhaps for decades–help improve the lives and the health of villagers for years to come.  For only $5 per person, the village has a sustainable supply of potable water for the foreseeable future. 

 

The advance team from PASE has now left to begin work on two springs near Bohong, located in northwestern CAR where many internally displaced persons and returned refugees have settled, after the violence and insecurity of the past several years seems to be over.  Bohong is about 4 hours northeast of our office, so logistics are a bit more complicated as cement and wood for formwork are not locally available.

 

Our work is supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) through their Global Mission and World Hunger Fund programs.  To find out how you can help, contact Rev. Twila Schock, Global Mission and Development Services, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.  Or e-mail her at Twila.Schock@elca.org.  Checks may be made out to ELCA.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Woman and her daughter collecting water from newly constructed spring box in Yongmondere, Central African Republic (after the concrete cures, the extra long pipe coming out of the spring box will be trimmed.)

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon.

 

World Water Week in Sweden and in the Central African Republic

Last week, international experts gathered in Stockholm to discuss the water problems of the world. At the opening address, Anders Berntell said, “Bad water kills more people than HIV, malaria, and wars together, affecting the lives of families and the economic development of many countries around the world.

 

This week in the Central African Republic (CAR), there was no meeting of water experts. We did not need an expert to tell us the effects of bad water. As they have for decades, women and small children go daily to the nearest stream or spring for water of dubious quality. Most families do not even have a pit toilet for sanitation. People regularly get sick from water-borne diseases. Typhoid, giardia, and amoebic dysentery are common ailments at the hospital. There is a cholera outbreak in a neighboring country. We hope it does not come here. People in the CAR die from these preventable and treatable diseases because they lack access to safe water, sanitation, and health care.

 

This week, however, the Water Management Project (known as PASE for its acronym in French) began construction of a spring box in Yongmondere, a small village about 15 kilometers west of where we live. This is the tenth spring box we have worked on since the beginning of the year. That may not sound like much, but with a small amount of funds from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) we are able to improve the life of many villagers in western CAR through the construction of spring boxes, plus teaching hygiene and working with village water committees. 

 

Soon, I hope to be able to post a picture of the finished spring box in Yongmondere.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Man drinking from small spring that drains into an old metal pot, Yongmondere, Central African Republic

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

 

Emmanuel - God With Us

Here is the final version of a video from a crazy friend of mine, Bruce Sundeen. He visited us in January and made this video for a new Lutheran Health Clinic in Gallo, about an hour east of our house. The video also includes details on other work by the Lutheran Church in our area.

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Emmanuel; God With Us

Here is a video from a crazy friend of mine, Bruce Sundeen. He visited us in January and made this video for a new Lutheran Health Clinic in Gallo, about an hour east of our house. The video also includes details on other work by the Lutheran Church in our area.

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Earth Day in the Central African Republic

Today is much like every other day in the Central African Republic (CAR). Life continues its simple rhythm following the annual cycle of seasons. Slowly we are changing from the dry season to the rainy season. Everyone here is a farmer and now is the time I can watch them planting crops. They burn the field, turn over the soil by hand with a homemade hoe, and plant. Then like farmers everywhere, they wait and hope for just the right amount of rain. I know that the dusty dirt roads will soon be replaced with mud, but no one knows when.

 

Family life continues inside and around the traditional mud brick houses in the village. The daily meal is cooked over an open fire. Women and children fetch water every day and carry it home on their heads. Most people get water from springs, which at this time of the year are barely more than mud holes. In a few places where there is a relatively clear trickle of water and then there is a line of people waiting with their buckets. It takes a long time to fill a 5 gallon container from a small trickle one cup at a time. Parents send their children to wait in line. Most children do not go to school. Three out of four girls are kept at home to help with the chores, such as fetching water.

 

Water-borne diseases are common. Those who can afford it, go to the hospital where seeing the nurse costs about 25 cents and prescriptions for diarrhea, worms, or malaria are filled for only a dollar or two.   Unfortunately not everyone can afford even these modest fees.

 

PASE (the water management project that I work with) teaches hygiene and sanitation to villagers. We improve water sources and repair wells. We do simple, sustainable projects to improve the lives of people that live in this part of the CAR.

 

People often ask me, what they can do to help. One of the things I tell them is to be informed. Read. Mail is slow here and I have not yet received my April 2010 issue of National Geographic. But many people have e-mailed me that it is a special issue devoted entirely to water. It talks about accessibility, purity, and the impact of climate change. I have heard that it talks of the work of my colleagues in Water Aid (a British NGO) that are working in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

 

We do not celebrate Earth Day here, but I would like to ask you to celebrate Earth Day by informing yourself about the many water issues that the world is facing. Please think about those less fortunate than yourself. Think about the futures of the children that never go to school because they spend the day fetching water.

 

For those who wish to support the work of the ELCA in the CAR, please contact Rev. Twila Schock, Director for ELCA Global Mission Support at Twila.Schock@elca.org

 

Photo is of the April 2010 Cover of National Geographic.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Nigerian Lutherans Help Their Central African Sisters

Recently the Central African Republic has seen a positive development in relations between francophone and anglophone church bodies. Specifically, the women of the Yola Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria have come to the aid of their sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central African Republic. Twenty-eight Nigerian women and one male pastor braved a three day drive on bad roads across two international borders to join their Central African sisters at a national women's conference. 

 

The conference, the biennial synod of Femmes Pour Christ Centrafricaines (Women for Christ of the Central African Republic), was held in Bohong, a town in northwestern Central African Republic.  This area has seen much violence and unrest in past years, but is now starting to recover as peace has been restored to the region. 

 

The women of the Yola Diocese helped provide music for the conference.  Their singing and dancing, accompanied by percussion instruments which they left as gifts, enlivened the synod's proceedings. 

 

In addition to the musical instruments, the Nigerians brought gifts of five sewing machines, jewelry-making materials, fabric, shoes, and kitchen utensils to give to their Central African counterparts.  They also offered classes in jewelry-making and in preparing a local non-alcoholic beverage. The Nigerian church women sell these items to raise funds for their church work and to help sustain their families. All travel expenses were paid for by the Nigerian women themselves. 

 

The conference proceedings were translated from Sango (the Central African trade language) into Hausa (a Nigerian trade language), by Josephine Oumarou, the newly elected vice-president of Women for Christ. Madame Simone Baigo-Dari, out-going president, receives our congratulations for having organized this successful meeting, and for inviting the women of the Yola Diocese, whom she met at an international conference held in 2008 in Cameroon. 

 

In a world full of so much ethnic violence and hatred, the women of the Yola Lutheran Diocese of Nigeria have demonstrated that unselfish love and concern for one's neighbors can still be found - and that you don't have to have a lot yourself in order to help others. 

 

Photo shows Nigerian Women's Choir singing, accompanied by traditional percussion instruments.

Deborah and Joe Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.