It's a Month to the BIG START!

It’s the first of December 2021, and it’s going to be an interesting month. One, it is my birthday month and I will be 69 years old. Second, the Omicron variant is the top world news item. Finally, and third, it is a month before going back to the Congo to start a big water project.
In December of 2019, I had spent an exciting and life-changing two weeks in the Congo. I went to visit my friend Paul Law in Lodja (located in the Sankuru Province of Congo) again. I had visited Paul in April 2014 after he had started using my Lone Star trailer mounted drilling rig (LS-300). I was accompanied by Joe Haynes from Lone Star. We are going to work through some growing pains of water well drilling in the Congo with the LS-300. My organization, Congo Helping Hands, had purchased and shipped the drilling rig to the Congo in summer of 2012. I had been unsuccessful in completing several water wells. And partly due to frustration and lack of funding, I had decided to let Paul experiment with the LS-300. Paul was successful in drilling several water wells but he was not satisfied with the LS-300. The time required to complete a water well was about a week. As a result, Paul wanted to speed the process to provide safe drinking water to rural Congo villages. And after nearly five years, Paul was ready to take delivery of a larger and faster Super Rock 750 truck mounted drilling rig from South Africa. We, Paul and I, were ready to put this new drilling through its growing pains.
We were very optimistic about the use of the truck mounted rig. And we made plans to start drilling rural water wells in earnest in March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic seriously delayed my return to Congo until June 2021. In the interim, Paul continued the learning process by finding solutions to drilling problems unique to Congo.