A young boy flashes a gummy smile as he chases, barefoot, other boys, zigzagging between the mud huts in the Ethiopian village. Nearby, a concrete house is rising from the squelching mud, a welcome sign to the villagers who live in the straw-thatched huts that offer little shelter against the elements.
The new homes are the work of Living Waters, a local charity focused on developing a low-cost housing project for 55 families in Ethiopia, which will be christened Village Malta once ready.
The Ethiopia mission can finally be realised after Living Waters was chosen from 34 proposals as one of nine beneficiaries of this year's Overseas Development Aid.
The NGO will be receiving €48,000 from the Foreign Affairs Ministry to help finance the project, which should be ready by November 2010.
Television presenter Mark Caruana, who decided to film the progress of the missionary group's work for a documentary, said the team were thrilled to get new financial impetus for the project.
The government has this year nearly doubled its ODA budget to €330,000 and the ministry will be signing letters of commitment with the nine NGOs this week to help them implement projects abroad.
In 2000, Malta, together with 188 other nations, had agreed and pledged to halve extreme poverty, halt the spread of AIDS/HIV and provide universal primary education by 2015.
As part of these Millennium Development Goals, Malta also undertook a commitment to give 0.33 per cent of its gross national income as ODA by that time.
However, the subject of ODA has been a thorn in the government's side for the past year after Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg admitted the bulk of its budget for overseas development assistance had gone towards rescuing and accommodating refugees.
This declaration in October 2008 confirmed the concerns of non-government development organisations (NGDOs), which had repeatedly called on the government not to include refugee expenses and debt relief in the official reporting of ODA.
Last May, the international 2009 Aid Watch report also criticised Malta for inflating its figures on aid to developing countries by including repatriation expenses, and money spent of detention centres. The report also pointed out that the government did not provide a breakdown of ODA figures, which made public analysis and scrutiny of aid extremely difficult.
However, the government is finally on the right track - it has increased its budget by 43 per cent, up to €330,000 from last year's €230,000, and the breakdown of the money it is giving beneficiaries is readily available.
Dr Borg has also delivered on his promise to set up an advisory committee to work with NGDOs to start implementing the overseas development policy.
The nine projects were chosen from 34 proposals after meetings with the volunteers. Some were rejected because they did not satisfy the requirements. The nine NGOs benefitting from this year's ODA are: Mission Fund, Happy Movement Kenya, Kare4Kenya, Malta Red Cross, Living Waters, INYGO Foundation, Gawad Kalinga, Daughters of the Sacred Heart, and Fr Nicholas Schembri.