Delivery!

The materials for my latrine arrived! Or, most of them did. Everything except the sections of PVC pipe that will be used to provide pit ventilation was delivered, but the hardware store ran out of PVC pipe. It only took two days for them to get it in stick, but then the delivery truck had some mechanical issues and that took a few more days to fix. Things seem to be back on track now and really, it wouldn't be Senegal if there wasn't at least some sort of minor delay and the driver's a nice guy who gave me a good deal on transport so I can't complain (too much).

The truck drove right up on to our compound and they unloaded the cement into my host mom Mariama's old hut, which luckily is still standing. She had a new square hut built about six months ago and has just been using the old hut for storage, which was extremely serendipitous for me and my five metric tons of latrine-bound cement. People have been digging or hiring diggers to get the latrine pits ready, and once the PVC ventilation pipes arrive (which should happen today, if all goes well) the masons will have everything they need to start installing the latrines themselves.

The truck guys unloaded the iron bars (rebar, you would call it?) on to the ground and my host brother Mamadou and his friends hauled them over to the side of the storage hut. Sajou Ba and Diabou tried to "help" for about ten seconds before they (quite rightly) got scolded away. 

I'm happy to see that things are moving along and even happier to see that people are still motivated and interested in the project. Every time I walk over to the market I see more holes being dug and someone calls me over to ask if the materials are ready yet or tell me that they paid their part of the community contribution and are ready to start. There's still a lot of work to be done but we're off to a good start.