“The story is now published. Your expertise was very helpful in sorting between the claims of the different parties, but I unfortunately didn’t end up quoting you directly due to space constraints,” Jeremy Weber, News Editor Christianity Today magazine wrote on 6 October 2011 in response to a reply on his question about jargon used on repair versus rehabilitation of hand pumps in Central Africa. The IRC Q&A Questions on “rehabilitation” vs a well “repair” or “service maintenance” of hand pumps in Central Africa was published on our WASH Help Desk.
Published on: 27/10/2011
“The Messy Business of Clean Water in Africa: Drilling for truth in the Central African Republic”, is the title of a six-page article by Jeremy Weber in Bangui, Central African Republic that was posted online on 26 October 2011.
“The men planned to meet in the desolate rainforest of Central Africa, amid towering 150-foot trees and swarms of small butterflies clustered like shark teeth on the seemingly endless red clay road. Their discussion would lead to clean drinking water for hundreds of destitute villages—and the fracturing of a tight-knit missionary community.
Driving east from Berberati, a town of 80,000 where diamonds can be found in nearby streambeds, was Roland Mararv. The former Iron Curtain Bible smuggler had traded the life of a Swedish Baptist missionary for that of a commercial well-driller—a better way, he believed, to help the Central African Republic (CAR) escape the ranks of the world's 10 poorest nations. After 20 years in business, Mararv was seeking a suitable buyer for his drilling company, Sangha Forage.
Having traveled originally west from Bangui, the landlocked nation's capital of 700,000 along the wide Ubangi River, was Jim Hocking. The longtime Grace Brethren missionary had been raised in the CAR and was looking for a way to pursue his empowerment dreams for Central Africans that his mission's emphasis on souls had been constraining.”
Source: e-mail exchange October 2011.
