On Monday, we went hiked down to the valley nearby in order to do some surveying. Above, you see me manning the rod while James (not pictured) is manning the auto-level. We are trying to pipe water from a capped spring to a nearby collection of houses for use for fish hatcheries. The sun, heat, and humidity made it one of the hardest surveys I've ever done. It took most of the day and when we did the math later that night, we realized that we're going to have to excavate about 14 feet down in order to accommodate the piping. That's a lot of earth to move without machinery.
Despite Carnival, a three day festival leading up to Lent, we managed to begin our first project this week: repairing and redoing the fountain distribution system here in the village where we are staying. Currently, the broken taps on every fountain are wasting a huge amount of water. In addition, the near constant flow of water makes it almost impossible to regulate our treatment system so we cannot ensure that we stay within the WHO (World Health Organization) criteria for clean water. In this picture, you can see me working with one of our foremen next to the first fountain.
Today, while still making progress on the fountain project, we managed to clean the main cistern in the village as part of our overhaul of the current water system. It was the first time that this large concrete reservoir had been cleaned in a year due to a broken ball valve. Needless to say, someone should've called Mike Rowe for this one. With the cistern finally clean, and the fountain repairs underway, we will have the evidence to prove that we are managing the only municipal clean water system in the country.
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