I just wrote on Walt's page and I don't know who to move it so I decided to write some more. The 19th Century is Arlana's handiwork I'm sure you all know.
To day we got up at 5:30 and met our interperter at the bridge on our way to a village called Festelita. It is a beautiful village quite large and has been trying you years to get clean water to the homes of the people. They contacted the church who said "Okay lets do something." When the Ministry of Environment heard we were helping they decided to help, too. So with the help of the government and the church a large water tower was built and pipes were laid pumps and electrical wires were put in. Today was the celebration of the completion of that project.
We left the apartment at 6:40 picked up Doina at 7 and arrived at the village at 8:30. The first plan was to start at 10 then it was moved to 9:30. We waited by the mayors office for 30 min then went to the water tower. It looks beautiful and we could hear it filling with water. We also went down to another pump site and saw what was happening there. Then back up the hill to the water tower. The Priest was there at first then went down to the pump to walk the way up to the tower and bless the pipes etc. A few of the villagers came up to join us and the Minister of Environment came with the Mayor. We were finally ready to start it was 10:30. The Mayor, Minister, the Vice President of the Raeion (county) Walt, Lidia our friend the engineer and her son all spoke. The people also presented each of us with a circle loaf of breaded bread and a towel with a candle and matches. There was a National news reporter there and he recorded all that was happening.
A women''s choir dressed in traditional dress sang several lively songs accompanied by a man on an accordion. I was tapping my foot along with their beat. While they sang the food and wine was brought out and we were invited to eat. They were stressed when we wouldn't taste their wine. Some one went and got some juice made from grapes, (white and purple). It was ok to drink that. We were grateful for Doina who protected us. The wine was in 2 liter bottles and looked like pop. She let us know what it really was. The food was good traditional salads and potato and meat dishes and bread of course. Very good. After the ladies quite singing and we had eaten the Minister had to leave for funeral. We were going to go sign some papers but they ask us to wait until all the people had eaten with the mayor. The people didn't eat until we had. So we watched them eat and tried to not have them filling our cups with more drink. We finally decided to have a cup of juice and not drink it until it was time to go. This guy who was seeing to our needs filled my coat pocket with chocolate candy. I didn't mind. He also invited us to his house which I would have liked to do but we didn't go back after the paper signing. He was a very happy man.
It was a fun day to meet with the shy, kind people of this village. They so much appreciated the clean water coming to their homes. It will change their lives. I took a picture of this sweet old lady. I wanted to hug her but decided I shouldn't. She said I could take her picture. We also had our picture taken with the singers.
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