At well’s bottom, a wish for community

Sgt. 1st Class William Brown, with the National Guard’s 1132nd Well Drilling Detachment works on a well near a remote village in southern Djibouti on Thursday. When completed, the well will serve the roughly 600 to 800 local residents who live in the area or migrate through.


At well’s bottom, a wish for community
By Zeke Minaya, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, December 17, 2007

CARTA, Djibouti — One look at the craggy lunar landscape of this impoverished village in southern Djibouti and it’s no surprise that villagers here routinely go three to four days without water and instead depend on goat and camel milk.

One of the few hints of greenery among the squat, spiny acacia trees and black chunks of basalt rock is a miniature Christmas tree, tucked in the corner of a sun-bleached military tent.

The 1132nd Well Drilling Detachment out of Morrisville, N.C., are doing their best to bring a bit of yuletide cheer to this dusty corner of Djibouti, about 50 miles west of Camp Lemonier, home to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

But the National Guardsmen’s more lasting contribution to the herders and nomadic tribes that call this sun-blasted land home is still a few days from completion. The well-drillers, accompanied by a contingent of Guam National Guardsmen, are reaching about 520 feet below the scrubby, hilly desert and tapping into an aquifer.

“I’ve been in the military for 19 years and I’ve never done anything as rewarding as this,” said Sgt. 1st Class William Brown, a 37-year-old native of Pinnacle, N.C. “We feel like we have the most important mission here. It’s really rewarding. Generations to come will remember us.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51049



uhc comment: This is the 5th article I've seen on Djibouti/Africom since 11/21/2007 -->

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