Drilling Permit Acquired!

Getting a permit to drill our well has certainly been a long and arduous process. Last August, we filed our permit through our original drilling contractor, hoping to have it filed in time for a January implementation trip. Repeated attempts to contact our driller were unsuccessful, and in December we lost all contact with him, forcing us to postpone our trip. After months of searching a reliable drilling contractor, we found Mohamed Ali. Mohamed was recommended to us by Montana State University's EWB chapter; he has drilled eleven successful wells for them and is currently working on a twelfth. He refiled our permit in April, and today, our struggle finally came to an end. We have a drilling permit! We picked up the permit ourselves from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) office.  Here is a picture of our professional mentor Natalya Shimunova receiving the well permit from NEMA official Stella Kamwasir: 

Afterwards, we returned to the community to meet with Mohamed and discuss borehole locations and construction of a guard house. Mohamed informed us that drilling can start on Friday!