Today I talked with Ariane about the significance of thousands upon thousands of people lining up at the borehole in Tangarwachane to get clean water. The fact that people are traversing great distances (as much as 120 miles) to get water indicates the depth of the catastrophe all around the region where there is no water to be found. Unfortunately, the rains should have started over a month ago, and the lack of rain at the start of the already short rainy season also has great implications for future food production.

The Tangarwachane borehole is meant to serve four camps, four villages, and nomadic camps passing through, as well as their animals. Although the numbers can rise to 25,000, this is not an ideal situation, and only happens because there are so few water sources currently available in the Azawak. Such high pressure on one source can cause a great deal of environmental damage, huge lines and lots of time lost waiting to get to water, less water for each family, and more pressure on the infrastructure which could cause the borehole equipment to break down more quickly. The management committees being set up now to maintain the borehole will have their work ahead of them.

A small cue of animals and people....imagine thousands upon thousands lining up here!

Amman Imman hopes to decrease the number of people at one well significantly by building more and more water sources, aiming at 2,000 people and 10,000 livestock for the future after more boreholes are built. Ariane says that they knew people might travel up to 30 to 35 miles, but the big surprise is to find that people are traveling 120 miles round trip.

But with no rain, the shallow marsh wells having dried up, and the few deeper 100 meter open wells also dry, as Ariane mentioned in her June 22 update, it is no wonder that people would travel these great distances, desperately thirsty as they must be.

It is wonderful that water is now available for people at Tangarwachane. But they should be able to find water nearer to them so that they don't have to travel so far. The fact is that one borehole cannot serve the needs of the entire region. Hopefully, with time, this situation will ease up and more boreholes will be built.

The first question I asked Ariane was whether people were getting along with each other as they stood in these long lines. I could only imagine how one might feel being so thirsty in such a hot climate. According to Denis' reports, the procession of people and their animals has been very peaceful. My only conclusion is that these people are used to waiting in long lines for water. This has been their way of life. Hopefully, in the future, with Amman Imman's help, the situation will improve. For now, thank goodness for the borehole at Tangarwachane.

This just in from Ariane...she is in Niamey, Niger and just heard from Denis who is in the Azawak:

Dear Friends of the Azawak,

This is just a very quick note to tell you that, upon Denis' arrival at the borehole of Tangarwachane, he found thousands and thousands of people and their animals waiting in line for water. Some of these people had traveled as far as 100 km (200 km round-trip, and approximately 120 miles round trip) searching for water. The situation is so dire at this point, that entire populations are literally abandoning their villages, and moving closer to the few sustainable sources of water. I apologize for reemphasizing the point… but the Tangarwachane borehole, along with the few others in the area, cannot alone meet the needs of all these people and their livestock. We pray for rain and more boreholes ASAP!

Yours,
Ariane

In front of the original cistern at the Amman Imman borehole at Tangarwachane

Dear Friends of the Azawak,

Firstly, I hope that you are all well, and looking forward to the summer, with time away from work and school, resting and enjoying family and friends.

Here in Niger, it is summer all the time, but work does not end to help cope with the heat. The rains seem to have forgotten and bypassed Niger this year. Everyone is suffering, but those menaced the most are the villagers that count on the rain to grow millet and other crops, to have water to drink, to bathe, to give to their animals, and to simply survive.

The strenuous heat has slowed us down a bit… well, particularly me. Denis has been admirable, making the 1700 km round trip journey to the Azawak many times. The last time he was there, he and the construction company conducted a 12 hour pumping trial, to make sure that the borehole has a sustainable quantity of water. During 12 hours, water was pumped out of the borehole, and to our great relief and happiness, the water table only dropped one meter. This is really good news, and means that the borehole should not run out of water any time soon.

We also ran another test on the water quality, just to be sure that the first tests had given accurate results and that nothing had changed since February. The water is pure, and can be deemed, according to the laboratory, mineral water quality. This is also amazing news. It seems so sadly ironic that most people of the Azawak are forced to drink contaminated water, often of deadly quality, when below them – albeit 200 meters below -- pristine water runs throughout the Azawak underground floor. In Europe or in the USA, we could be selling their mineral water for a good deal of money.

Mariama drinking clean water from the Amman Imman borehole at Tangarwachane

I'm impatient to get this delicious and healthy water to more and more people. On Denis' last trips to the Azawak, the situation was getting more and more difficult as the shallow marsh wells had all dried up, and many of the deeper 100 meter open wells had also dried up. Finding water of any quality, good or bad, is almost impossible, and this situation won't get any better until the rains fall.

This morning, Denis left again for the Azawak with a construction team and a huge truck filled with equipment (water fountains, animal drinking basins, piping, etc.) for the Tangarwachane borehole. 30 construction workers are going to be working every day for the next few weeks to finish equipping the borehole. At the same time, the management committee is going to be established and trained by professionals from the ministry of hydraulics.

I'm traveling up to the Azawak next week to make sure everything is running smoothly, and see the end of construction, and celebrate the accomplishment of our first borehole. This is so exciting, as I'm convinced it is going to be a real success story, and will pave the way for future boreholes.

Have a wonderful summer!
Yours in peace and friendship,
Ariane

The photos below show people who do not have access to clean water and are still relying on very dirty, muddy wells for their water source

The fostering of students as leaders emerged as a prime ingredient in the success of the partnership between Montessori schools and Amman Imman. We saw evidence of leadership displayed in many forms.

• For the 200 educators at the Montessori Peace Academy conference, students were among the first source of information about the project as they stood by Ariane and presented the project at the conference (see photo above).
• Students at Oneness-Family School presented the project to students at the Barrie School who presented the project to students at the Evergreen School.
• Teacher Laura Sesso from Undercroft Montessori in Tulsa, Oklahoma, heard Ariane’s presentation in Florida. She returned home and told her middle school students about the project. The students themselves researched the Amman Imman website, downloaded the Powerpoint presentation through the blog and presented the project to the other classes at the school. They raised close to $1,000 for Amman Imman.
  
• Students in the Cayman Islands, inspired about the project through their teacher, Sarah Genereux, who heard Ariane speak in Florida, held car washes, read-a-thons and art shows, raising over $3000 for the project.
  
• Students in Hickory Day School, where teacher Brent Harrison found out about the project after emails with blog updates were forwarded to him, chose the Amman Imman project among various options about Africa that their teacher presented to them. These students reported about the struggles of the people and collected change from the student and parent community, raising around $500.

These are examples of the many student-oriented initiatives and examples of leadership that have been generated through the project.

A student at Oneness-Family School expressed the influence that Ariane had on her notion of leadership when she named Ariane as one of three leaders who inspired her. This year, Louise Eriksson, a 7th grader, was part of a youth leadership initiative called People to People. In the spring, she attended a seminar in Washington D.C. with other youths. As part of her work, she was asked to "write about three present-day people who have leadership qualities that you aspire to have and describe why". The three people she chose to write about, in this order, were Ariane Kirtley, Al Gore and Mohammed Ali. Here is what she wrote about Ariane:

Ariane speaks with such compassion about the children and adults in Azawak, Niger's most remote and abandoned territory, covering 80,000 square miles and inhabited by over 500,000 people. There are no roads or dirt paths, no schools or health centers, and most importantly, no sources of water. Amman Imman's mission is to build permanent and sustainable sources of water throughout the territory.

Ariane came to our school in the beginning of this school year and spoke with such compassion about her experience and lack of help from world organizations. At first she tried to get support but was told that no help could be given. She did not take no for an answer. Instead she started traveling around North America spreading her word about the lack of water, the people in the Azawak Valley and the need for financial support. She was very knowledgeable about her topic and convincing. She made us all feel that we needed to take part in raising funds. She made me believe I can help change the lives for these people. Ms. Kirtley is now in Niger overlooking the first drilling holes.

I would like to be able to speak with such compassion to others to inspire them to do well in the world. To be able to continue even when it looks like there is no hope.

It is interesting to note that each of the people whom Louise chose as inspiring leaders are ones with whom she feels some personal connection through experiences she's had at school, experiences that were not just one time occurrences but lingered, and became part of her frame of reference. She saw Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth with her class last year, and they spent some time discussing it. Mohammed Ali visited Oneness-Family School a couple of years ago, making quite an impression on the students. During this school year, Ariane Kirtley, the number one person on her list, has been an alive and continual presence for all of our students.

Louise's expression exemplifies the affect that I envisioned the project of Amman Imman and Ariane's example would have with students. It is not only the success of building a well and saving lives that these students have latched on to within this project, but also the possibility that their own effort can mean something. They have discovered the potential to be part of the change. By Ariane's example, they understand the power of one person standing up and taking action to right an injustice, correct a wrong, bring hope and save lives.

June, 2007

Dearest Students and Friends of the Azawak,

As this school year comes to an end, I reflect back on everything that has taken place since November, when the Amman Imman - Montessori partnership began.

I recall the first day I went to the Oneness Family School in October, invited by Andrew Kutt, to speak about the people of the Azawak and their plight to first, second and third graders, and then to the “Peacekeepers”. It was wonderful sharing their lives with such young and open spirits, and they couldn’t believe their ears when they heard of the suffering in the Azawak. I asked them if they could imagine having to walk all the way from their school to downtown Washington DC, just to find a drink of water? They were touched by the smiles of the children they saw in the photos. How could they be so happy without water to drink or bathe with, and without food to eat? They immediately started planning different ways they were going to share the story with their friends and families, and raise money for the project.

Andrew then asked me to hold a stand at the school’s United Nations Day so that I could meet parents and teachers, which led to him to inviting me to the Montessori Peace Conference in Florida, where Oneness Peacekeepers Gabrielle, Nadia and Jasmine, and I presented Amman Imman to a large auditorium of parents and teachers. At this conference I met several beautiful individuals that have become key leaders in this Montessori Amman Imman movement, such as Debbie Kahn, June Lang, Tim Seldin, Maureen Keeling, Megan Mason, Catherine Varkas, Sarah Genereux, Lisa Marie Hamby and so many more teachers and parents that brought back the project to their schools after the conference.

Since the conference, the Montessori Amman Imman partnership has blossomed into a gorgeous flower composed of brilliant multicolored petals of innovative activities, from individual school initiatives, to “A Month without Water”, to “A Walk for Water”. This flower of love blossomed and grew brilliant and strong in so little time that it is difficult to believe that we’ve been living this adventure together for less than a year. I simply pray that this adventure blossoms into a field of flowers of activities, where Montessori schools across the world work to bring water and life to the children of the Azawak.

I hope to be in America at the beginning of the school year to visit schools, and meet as many of you as possible, as well as your parents and teachers, and share with you new stories and photos of the Azawak. Like this, we can start off the new school year hand in hand, working in harmony for the children of the Azawak.

Thank you for everything you have done to bring hope, joy, and life to your African brothers and sisters. They are so grateful, as are all the members of the Amman Imman team. You have the power to change lives and make this world a better place. Thank you for being strong and proactive, and caring so much for the future of people you have never even met.

Have a wonderful summer! Please stay in touch and continue to remember the children of the Azawak. I will keep all of you in my heart.

Much love and gratitude,
Ariane