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Kudos

Caring Deeply: Missoula Couple Working to Dig a Well in Zanzibar

By Amy Linn, 7-02-09

Sara and Said Hemed with daughter Malia in their Northside workshop. Photo by Greta Rybus.

Clean water. For Missoula residents Said and Sara Hemed, it would be a dream come true if they could finish digging a well in Said’s native Zanzibar village so people there could have water to drink and use for washing—without having to walk a mile to a water pump and haul it back in buckets.

Said (pronounced sye’-dee) and his wife, Sara, a Montana native, have other dreams too. They want to provide arts and education classes for adults and children on the six acres Said owns in Mchekeni, a village of about 300 people in Zanzibar, the small island off the coast of Tanzania.

Along the way, they’ve launched a group, Artisans for Africa, and are selling handmade crafts every Saturday at the Missoula Peoples’ Market—batik purses, screen-printed fabrics, baby shoes, jewelry—to raise the money to complete the well. They envision volunteers from Missoula helping them finish the project, dug out so far with little but chisels and pails.

They also want to teach villagers show to make crafts, screen-printings and all sorts of things to sell to tourists, the lifeblood of the impoverished island.

It’s a big wish list for anyone. It’s an even bigger wish list for the parents of a happy, energetic one-year-old, who alternately sits on her dad’s lap while he sews his intricate baby shoes or toddles around under her mother’s watchful gaze, trying to pick up everything she sees. But the Hemeds can’t stop now.

“We need to finish digging the well—there’s only six feet more to go,” says Said, sewing while he talks. Around him in the Northside garage are piles of bright cloth, soft leather, trim, recycled materials and dozens of items to sell.

“We want to get a formal group together from Missoula to go back with us and help finish it,” adds Sara.

“Water is very important,” Said continues. “I see a picture of a garden and picture a farm in my mind—a place to help the children. Everything would grow there. If we get water there, everything can be done.”

Sales proceeds from the Hemed’s one-of-a-kind crafts—including soft-soled baby booties called Watotoes (“children” in Swahili)—will help finish the work in Africa, where the couple hopes to eventually live for half of the year.

Missoula might not seem like a likely haven for a man who’s spent his life on tropical islands. Said grew up in Zanzibar, married a Hawaiian woman, lived in Oahu and divorced. He then met and married Sara, an accomplished photographer, who was living in Hawaii and working with United Airlines. The couple has spent a large portion of their married life traveling to Zanzibar for stints on Said’s land.

But they moved to Missoula last March in time for their daughter to be born (and for Said’s first taste of ultra-cold weather). Sara, a Kalispell native, is happy to be here. So is Said. “I love it because people here are very friendly,” he says. “Every day here I make a new friend.”

The two artists say they hope some of their new friends will help them build the well and add a water tank, pump and tap so that nearby children can have easy access to free, clean water, the prerequisite for health—and a very rare commodity in Africa. Up to 80 percent of the health problems in Africa and the developing world are related to contaminated water, studies show. Two-fifths of the people in the world lack access to clean water and sanitation facilities, leading to millions of deaths from waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea, which alone kills one child every 15 seconds.

Ready access to clean water allows more children to get an education (when they don’t have clean clothes or have to spend hours toting water from far away, they often won’t go to school). And access to clean water helps free girls and women and improves their safety (since it saves them from having to fetch water in remote areas miles from home).

“Once we have water, everything will be okay,” Said says. “I pray that the angel of my God will come down and help me help those kids.”

To learn more about the world’s clean water shortage and efforts to combat it, check out the United Nation’s Water for Life program.

To buy items, donate money or join Artisans for Africa, look for the Hemeds at the Saturday People’s Market on Pine Street in downtown Missoula, or contact .

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