For those of you who have been reading my blog or following Heart for Africa on social media for years, you will know how much we talk about water. When we first purchased the 2,500 acres of African bush, that we now call Project Canaan, there was no river, which meant there was no water. For years we drilled bore holes and built dams to capture rainwater from the sky and runoff from the mountain. Then the drought of 2015 hit sub-Saharan Africa and our bore holes dried up and dams emptied, which lead to the mammoth undertaking of building a 6 miles pipeline from the top of the mountain down to the farm.
Last weekend Cyclone Eloise arrived in Eswatini after causing massive destruction in Mozambique and brought more water than have ever seen. Much of Eswatini suffered from the heavy rains (thankfully there was very little wind), causing roads to crumble, rivers to flood and houses to collapse.
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| Road to Nhlangano |
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| Nkonyeni Golf 5KM from Project Canaan |
Dam #1, which has been dry since 2015, filled up to overflowing in just one night of rain. Thankfully our spillways worked the way they were supposed to and dam #1 spilled over to dam #2, which spilled over (with some help of some quick bulldozer work) to the Living Water dam (#3). Even THAT spillway overflowed and that has never happened before. One week later, with minimal rains each day, the dams are still flowing into each other.
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| Dam #1 |
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| Dam #2 |
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| Living Water Dam (#3) |
The only real damage to Project Canaan was a retaining wall
which slid down the hill due to excessive water at the back of two new
buildings which had not been trenched yet. Not only did we have little damage,
but our dams full we have been blessed beyond measure with water and protection.
One thing that did come to light during the week of rain is that our children don’t have proper rain gear. In fact, we realized that have never bought our children rain jackets or ponchos. Last year we did a quick amazon drive for rain boots for the older kids and there are a few umbrellas that are shared on the wettest of days, but otherwise they put on their hoodies and walk to school in the rain, arriving soaked and cold (no matter the temperature).
We quickly realized that we need more rain boots and we need
rain ponchos for our kids. THANKFULLY (because God is God and He is the great “planner”)
we have container coming this way in February that has space on it so we are hoping
to fill it with enough rain boots for all our school age kids (200) and ponchos
for all of them as well. We set up an
amazon wish list, which you can access by clicking here. When you go to the
check out, just click the Heart for Africa gift address and it will
automatically be shipped to our warehouse in Georgia. The deadline for delivery is February 18th.
If you want to drop off or send gently used rain boots, jackets, umbrellas they need to arrive no later than February 18th. The address is: 410 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 146, Cumming, GA 30041 and please only drop off on Monday – Friday. We are also accepting gently used Hot Wheels type cars and Barbie dolls and Barbie doll clothes.
It does take a village to raise a child and I am eternally grateful for the great big, beautiful village that I am a part of in raising 275 Swazi children.
Thanks for shopping at our amazon wish list today http://bit.ly/raingearforpckids!
Live from Eswatini … trying to stay dry.
Janine
