Philippines blog 2
Well,
in my previous post about tormenting children I briefly mentioned a water
truck… For some reason, the orphanage here does not have a well. Instead they
have a 10 wheeler with a giant water tank on the back that daily fills a large
metal tank on campus. The truck is big, old, and well doesn’t have a battery.
So, in order to start the darn thing, we park it on a hill and throw it in
second and push start it.
Each
day the truck will run into town load up on water, and return home. Upon
returning home it would drive down the small dirt trail which we will call a
road, come to a small curve/fork in the road, pause, and begin to reverse up
one side of the fork onto a small hill. At the top of the hill lye a large
metal water reservoir. As the moving piece of mass begins its ascent to the top
deep ruts would form especially after a good rain. You see, the soft clay is
just not strong enough to support such a heavy load, and every day that truck
would get stuck at the top of the hill, digging deeper and deeper ruts.
This is
where our first few days were spent working. I was set in charge of the road
construction crew. HA! Supplies? Well, we had supplies. Shovels that bend,
rocks and gravel but no wheel barrel, and the truck we used to pull the trailer
its clutch gave out. I don’t know a whole lot about road construction, but I do
know that rocks will just continue to sink deeper and deeper into the red muck
if they have no base at the bottom. So the men began to cut and split large
pieces of bamboo. This would be the bottom layer of the road. We used rocks for
hammers and broken machetes to split the wood, we sweat and blistered and I
might have even cried a bit.
Soon
another truck was available for use and after laying bamboo shoots horizontally
across the road, we jumped on the opportunity to use a truck and trailer to
haul rock. First we laid down large rocks, and then began the journey of moving
a mountain of gravel. Load by load, shovel by shovel we began to cover up our
bamboo based road. Finally 4 days in, some of us pulling actually pulling 8
hour days in the Philippino sun, we finish. The truck still sinks down, but the
gravel is just getting compacted. SUCCESS!!
5 days
later, our truck driver is out on his daily ventures filling up with water. It
was a normal day, a bit rainy, a bit sunny, and smiling faces all around. He
was on his way back home when BAM!!!
The breaks give out while driving down a hill, another 10
wheeler is stopped in front of him, and he has nowhere to go. I can’t imagine
what was running through his mind as his truck propelled in what seemed like
slow motion into the back end of that other truck, but what I can tell you is
that the aftermath is gruesome. The steering wheel now sits where the driver would
sit. The bumper is where the engine once stood, the windshield now where the
steering wheel was and the already small cab that it was is now a whole lot
smaller. The truck is totaled.
I can
only say this, “God was at work that day!” The driver made it out of the
vehicle shaken up, but unscathed. I don’t rightly know how he made it out, but
he did! The steering wheel forcefully rest on top of the driver’s seat. The
dash board is pushed up against the seat. I don’t know how he was not pinned
inside of that truck? My answer, God!
Well,
the truck was towed back to campus, so we do have water, but we now carry it in
buckets rather than pumping it into the tank. The driver is ok and already back
at work. I don’t know what they will do for a new truck, but hopefully God will
provide soon.
If you
know anyone in the Philippines with a water truck for sale, or have a way of
helping out, let me know. I will get you in touch with the peeps in charge.
Love you all and miss you all. Buhbye!
