Barak Bruerd

Dusty Airstrip

Posted on January 01, 2011 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

You might want to watch out for donkey’s at the end of the airstrip.

Buried

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Northern Kenya.  11pm.  No road.  No cell coverage.  No help.  A historic event with a full tale that can really only be captured by the imagination. I’d put words to it, but it wouldn’t do it justice.

Community Training

Posted on September 09, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

There are simple things we take for granted, and things we are taught from a young age that we never even think about.  Here, community members have been taught basic things about hygiene and how diseases are transmitted – ideas we consider common sense, but in terms of the global majority, actually aren’t all that common.  In a place where families expect to lose at least one or two children to sickness, these people for the first time understand how to keep themselves healthy.  This elderly gentleman is repeating back a portion of the lesson on disease transmission.  When he finished, there was applause.

Small Miracles

Posted on September 09, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Sorry, I can’t help it.  These kids are awesome.  This little girl was laughing at me from across the drill site and then laughing at my friend who was goofing off beside her.  Believe it on not, for as young as she is, she was carrying around her baby brother on her back earlier in the day.  Responsibility comes at a young age in this part of the world and children are expected to play key roles in daily life.  Earlier today we carried water in 5-gallon jerry cans from a river half a mile away; the same place where this community goes in the dry season when their hand-dug wells run dry.  It was exhausting.  Putting my own daughter in this girl’s shoes, carrying containers of water several hours a day from river to home, with no way to purify it before drinking, helps me realize the real miracle this well represents in the eyes of this little girl.

In Their Shoes

Posted on September 08, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

The statistics vary, but most seem to agree that women and children in Africa walk somewhere between 2 and 5 miles a day to get water – a task that can take up to 70% of the day. Though words can be used to describe a 5 gallon jerry can weighing 40lbs there’s nothing quite like trying to carry one yourself – an activity we often use to help first-time visitors to the continent gain perspective on exactly how impacting a well can be in a community. We drew quite a crowd as we carried jerry cans through this village in Zambia and one local woman asked why we were carrying water. When told it was so we could better understand the challenges of living without running water her laughing response was “but they are only carrying one bucket?!”

1 of 1000 Smiles

Posted on September 07, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

There are a thousand smiles that could be photographed in a single community.  Today there were even more.  A new well is being drilled.

No other option…

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Families go entire generations with no option but to drink disease infested waters, some walking several miles a day to collect it.

Rwanda

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

A Rwandese girl at a newly installed water point.

Expectant

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

I think he was mostly in awe of the big yellow bucket I happened to be carrying on my head at the time.  Apparently he was under the impression that white people don’t carry water on their heads.  My aching neck later agreed with him.

Welding

Posted on February 01, 2008 by Barak in Africa | No Comments