Actually, yesterday we were supposed to continue to Abedju / DR. Congo.
However, Deleo from Divine Aid and his team arrived in Arua in the evening instead of in the morning. The Toyota Hilux had no
more power on the way. Probably the fuel pump is defective. After breakfast, Rossi organised everything for the journey. no more power. The fuel pump is probably defective.
After breakfast, Rossi organised everything for the journey. The Hilux from the Deleo had to be unloaded, Rossi had organised a Nissan pickup for the trip to Abedju and also a bus with 7 seats. With that we drove to immigration. It took a while to get all the paperwork done. Three of Deleo's employees needed new identity papers and passport photos. They had to have them taken in the city first.
When everything was done, we drove to an unofficial border crossing. Shortly before the border, we were stopped by Ugandan soldiers. They said that the car with the Ugandan number plate needed a permit to leave Uganda. After half an hour of discussion, we continued to Abedju. The Ugandans were amazed at the state of the main road in Congo. They had big grins on their faces; it probably wasn't as bad as they thought. They had a lot of respect for travelling to the Congo the night before. At the border, we were able to set the clock back an hour and thus make up for some of the lost time.
When we arrived in Abedju in the early afternoon, we had a quick lunch and then we got to work: we did a hydro-geological survey with a terrameter on the grounds of the mission hospital and identified two places where it might be worth drilling for a water supply. There is a hand pump on the premises. We dismantled this in the hope that the borehole could be used for water supply. However, it turned out to be in poor condition. The borehole was not constructed properly and is very heavily silted. The original depth of 46m has sunk to 31m. We are now pumping out water for at least 12 hours to remove as much sand as possible. Then the hand pump can be used there for another 10 years or more. When everything was done, we drove to an unofficial border crossing. Shortly before the border, we were stopped by Ugandan soldiers. They said that the car with the Ugandan number plate needed a permit to leave Uganda. After half an hour of discussion, we continued to Abedju.
The Ugandans were amazed at the state of the main road in Congo. They had big grins on their faces; it probably wasn't as bad as they thought. They had a lot of respect travelling to Congo the night before. At the border, we were able to set the clock back one hour and thus make up for some of the lost time.
When we arrived in Abedju in the early afternoon, we had a quick lunch and then we got to work:
we carried out a hydro-geological survey with a terrameter on the grounds of the mission hospital and identified two places where it might be worthwhile to drill a borehole for a water supply. + There is a hand pump on the site. We dismantled this in the hope that the borehole could be used for the water supply. However, it turned out that it is in a bad condition. The borehole was not constructed properly and is very heavily silted. The original depth of 46m has sunk to 31m. We are now pumping out water for at least 12 hours to remove as much sand as possible. Then the hand pump can be used there for another 10 years or more.
