After a good night's sleep, and a very filling breakfast, we departed our riverside resort onboard 15 passenger buses, which I refer to as "busettes" and headed to the village where we would be working on the construction of two water catchment dams. As I have tried to describe before, a water catchment dam simply "catches" or holds back the raging water caused by the monsoons each year. After hundreds of years, monsoons carve riverbeds in the earth, and shortly after the end of the monsoon season, these same riverbeds dry up as they leave scars of their brief presence. By building of dams, when the rains of the monsoons come, because of our efforts, the flood waters are caught and the villagers which live in the vicinity of the catchment dams, will benefit from the reservoirs created and will be able to create gravity-fed irrigation for growing up to three crops each year.
When we arrived at the village, and disembarked from our busettes, we were greeted by the most enthusiastic brass band of four players. Many of us were greeted not only by the Panchayjat (5 member city or village council) but several hundred villagers who were so very grateful for us being there in their village.
Beginning another fantastic Rotary project - YAY!
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