John Peters (born 1936 in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada) is a Canadian writer who grew up as the
youngest of eight on a small farm in southern Manitoba.
After aining an engineering degree and the University
of Manitoba in 1958, he worked in Manitoba, Ontario and
BC.
In 1975, along with his wife Frieda, and their three
children, they moved to Bangladesh, where he worked at
the Bangladesh Power Development Board for over three
years, while Frieda volunteered as Marketing Manager at
Jute Works, an organization dedicated to helping refuge
women. This positive experience launched them into
other overseas projects in Indonesia, West Africa,
Pakistan and Ethiopia. Between assignments they
travelled extensively in Asia, Central and South
America, Africa, Europe and Australia. Now retired,
they live in Courtenay, BC.
In
November 1980, the United Nations declared that the
next decade would bring ‘safe water and sanitation for
all.’ Although this lofty goal fell far short of being
met, there was a worldwide effort made towards it.
Every day in the 1980s, about 200,000 people gained
access to a safe supply of drinking water.
Peters was privileged to work on the installation and
maintenance of water systems in Ghana and Nigeria
during that decade. The work was not without its share
of trials and tribulations, however he can never forget
the joy on the faces of the villagers when a new well
was completed and women lined up to fill their water
containers with clean ground water.
To pass on
his experiences and those of the people he met and
worked with, he have created a novel. The characters
are fictional, except for a few political figureheads.
The country of the story’s setting, wedged between
Ghana, Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso, is a figment of
his imagination. The local African people, tribes and
places are also contrived and their customs, beliefs
and practices should not be construed as accurate. Yet
they are all based on general perceptions he gained
while working in the two countries.