Reality Bites!

It’s been a difficult week. One that’s been met with sheer excitement and complete disappointment. As we all sat in Makapanstad yesterday, facing the harsh reality that -after drilling 140 metres, spending R60 000 (£6000) & sharing two sleepless nights together - we weren’t going to find any water.

There was a 4% chance of this happening. 4%?! God obviously has other plans for us. We just can’t get our heads around what they are right now. Why does the rich businessman who owns a R12 million rand house in Sandton strike water straight away? Why, after all the love and kindness of complete strangers and the hope felt by the whole community - didn’t we?

My heart breaks as I type this. If you could have seen how excited Martha and the ladies were on Tuesday morning when Midrand Boreholes arrived with their drilling truck. And the sadness on their faces yesterday afternoon. I guess you can’t really question why – though it does make me want to scream and shout at someone up there. I felt so guilty when I got home last night and lay in my hot bath. We take it so for granted that we are afforded the luxury of water – when there are communities like Makapanstad, and good people like Martha, who aren’t.

Out of all the frustration and sadness, I guess there has got to come some good? Paul Spurgeon, from Cornerstone, who is responsible for the funding of the drilling – is the incredible bright light at the end of our tunnel. Having come all the way from the UK to be here for this, he has enriched all our lives through his enormously big heart and perseverance. He’s had to beg, borrow and steal to get the funding for this all to happen. So you can imagine how disappointed we all feel for him that we didn’t get the outcome he/we deserved. However, he and we are not giving up hope just yet. Somehow we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try to find water another way. No one said this journey would be easy.

We would also like to thank Midrand Boreholes, owned by Linda and Alan. Two very special people who out of the goodness of their hearts decided not to give up on Martha and spent all of last night and this morning with their team drilling open a dried up water pump at the back of Martha’s property (it’s not been used for 30 years). They managed to find Martha enough water to last approximately 6 months. We are now just waiting to take the water for testing - as it might be contaminated due to its close proximity to the long-drop toilet next to it. If it gets the all clear, we will try and get funding together to relocate the toilet and get Martha a proper pump and a tank so that she can get at least 20 litres pumped into taps in her house and at the workshop daily. This little gift from Midrand Boreholes has been the hope that we have needed – to know that out of every bad situation comes some good. We have met and made special friends through our ‘water’ experience - Paul, Linda, Alan, Nqobile – it’s inspiring to know that there are such good people, doing such good things for others.

And if you want to do something good too - please turn the tap off while you are brushing your teeth. If we all did that, every day for the rest of our lives…  just think how much water could be saved. And after seeing what life is like without any water – believe you me, we do not want to run out!

Mrs Celebrity!

Shooo, there’s lots on the go! Over the past two weeks we’ve had Penny Lebyane from Motswako come and visit us with the SABC2 film crew – much to Martha and the ladies delight. Martha and I then went to the SABC studios in Johannesburg for an interview about South African female entrepreneurs.

Martha was clearly the star of the show and when she got home, managed to spread the news to everyone she knew (she’s not been given the nickname Mrs Daily Sun by the ladies for nothing!). She told everyone about sitting in the make-up chair, being on set, and hanging out with the Minister of Health (who was also there for a separate interview before us) whom we both regret not harassing about the shocking health care conditions we face in our forgotten little rural community!

Other exciting news last week was that we got a Water Diviner out to the workshop to look for water at the workshop. It was an incredible experience and hard to explain the phenomena of an 83 year old man (who’s been finding water for the past 72 years) using a stick, a rod and a pendulum. Once he found the spot he could even tell us how deep we needed to drill. We are going to be drilling early next week – so I will tell you more then, as well as explain how this incredible opportunity came about.

On a separate note though, Martha’s little granddaughter Omphemetsi has been seriously ill and has been diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia. We were all very worried about her and Martha spent a few nights with her daughter Charlene and her husband Paul just helping them look after her last week. We’d like to thank Dr Amy Slogrove the wonderful Paediatric Doctor from South to South for being on the other end of the phone when we needed her advice and support the most. It’s wonderful to know that we now have paediatric medical support within the Heartfelt community.