Rush Slowly!

The title for todays blog is such a perfect picture of India--think about it!  Ron saw/heard it somewhere yesterday and it was his favorite quote of the day, and it has become mine too.  We could describe many things that have occurred in the past couple of days that illustrate, but I will mention only a couple.  

We have only three major problems on the Rising Star Campus: Power, Water, and Sewer. Now you might think these three entities are fairly crucial to survival, but we've discovered that life goes on even when all are not functioning as part of the scene at once.  On Tuesday, however, we had an incident when all three were cut off at once.  We have been digging large trenches all around  the hostels and leading to the school to lay the fiber optic lines to get our computer lab up and running and provide us all with connection to the outer world.  The backhoe (much to the joy of the children) operates at all hours of day and night (Amy chased them away at 11:00 p.m. the other night).  The trench from the school to the hostel runs parallel with the path leading to the school and, unfortunately all power and water lines ran along that same path.  The water line was broken in at least 5 places (my questions was why they didn't notice they were pulling up broken pipe with each scoop--it is very bright blue??), and the power line was ripped up about the same.  Now the sewer line was destroyed nearer the girls hostel, which wiped out their bathroom.  So, the children and part of the boys hostel had no water or power, and the girls hostel had no power nor sewer although water was still available, but could not be used.

We watched the "Rush Slowly" mantra go into action.  There were several men standing around conferring and scratching heads, while the volunteers grabbed shovels and went to work digging out the broken sewer (that was definitely the most critical problem to them.)  The men patched, pieced and created ways to get things temporarily working again, completing the job   (it took two days) by plugging the end of the broken water line with carefully crafted sticks.  It wasn't pretty, but by evening of the second day all systems were go again, and the girls especially were so grateful to have a shower!!

This one from the United States--Ron's T Mobil phone that he spent hours setting up in the US was not functioning, so he emailed telling them the problem.  They replied that they would refund his money, if he would come in and return the phone.  He had explained that he was in India, and that would not be possible until December.  They emailed back wanting proof that he was in India:  Ron emailed back saying "we are the happy few in the middle of nowhere--what more do you need to know??"

As you work today, remember Rush Slowly.

Love, Joyce and Ron