Tuesday and Wednesday, Dashen Bible School Well Rehabilitation
A little background material. Dashen is a Bible School for the children of evangelist who are posted at remote sites that do not have schools. Their well runs out of water every year. Global Health has authorized a project to deepen the well add concrete around the well to prevent surface water from entering the well and adding a new hand pump so they do not dip dirty buckets into the well. The deepening was in some fairly hard rock. They broke through to a lower pressure aquifer and had to quit digging as the water coming out of the fracture was faster than the electric pumps they had could empty the well. The formation the water is coming through has a clay content which is making the water cloudy. We are hoping that with use the clay will wash out of the rock and the water will clear up.
A little background material. Dashen is a Bible School for the children of evangelist who are posted at remote sites that do not have schools. Their well runs out of water every year. Global Health has authorized a project to deepen the well add concrete around the well to prevent surface water from entering the well and adding a new hand pump so they do not dip dirty buckets into the well. The deepening was in some fairly hard rock. They broke through to a lower pressure aquifer and had to quit digging as the water coming out of the fracture was faster than the electric pumps they had could empty the well. The formation the water is coming through has a clay content which is making the water cloudy. We are hoping that with use the clay will wash out of the rock and the water will clear up.
Tuesday we went to Dashen in an effort to save money we were going to repair rather than replace the pump. We ended up wasting money since we could not make the repairs. The pump was an old Unimade that had been converted to using a closed top cylinder by Grundfos. It used 10 mm rods and all we had brought were 12 mm. I looked at the combination of 1 ¼ inch with 2 inch pipes, Unimade head with Grunfos cylinder (and no repair parts for the Gunfos), 10 mm and 12 mm rod and said “We will come back with a complete pump where all parts match.”
The people there were going to pump out the well before we got there so it was less water to chlorinate. They wanted to hire a man that pumps water with a centrifugal pump to dewater the well. The water level was 41 feet below the ground. I told them that it would not work. That water cannot be pulled by suction more than 30 feet. They did not believe me. I explained that water turns to water vapor when you try to pull it with suction more than 30 feet. We agreed to hire four men for 1,000 naira each to use buckets and pump the pump to draw the water down as much as possible. So we headed back to Yola to buy a pump.
The people there were going to pump out the well before we got there so it was less water to chlorinate. They wanted to hire a man that pumps water with a centrifugal pump to dewater the well. The water level was 41 feet below the ground. I told them that it would not work. That water cannot be pulled by suction more than 30 feet. They did not believe me. I explained that water turns to water vapor when you try to pull it with suction more than 30 feet. We agreed to hire four men for 1,000 naira each to use buckets and pump the pump to draw the water down as much as possible. So we headed back to Yola to buy a pump.
The next day we returned and found them with pipes down the inspection door connected to a pump at the surface trying to use suction to pull water over 40 feet. They were trying to figure out why the pump was not pumping water. I told them to stop wasting fuel and turn the pump off. I looked at the pump and announced that this type of pump can only pump water from 30 feet. They seemed to accept that explanation since they had been running the pump for more than an hour without getting any water. We installed the new India Mark II pump and tested it. Within a few minutes buckets were appearing from the homes. We went about cleaning and putting away tools.
When we went to see how the progress was going on emptying the well. They were not using the buckets. One guy was pumping. They said it cannot be done that the water comes in too fast. We had enough chlorine to disinfect 1 meter deep of water and now we were going to have 3 meters. Adams said that only Yola sold chlorine we would have to go back to Yola. I said chlorine is used fby women to washing clothes, all the larger towns have it. So we drove on to Ganye. We found a shop with a whole shelf of ½ liter bottles of bleach. It was locked up. The next store had 2 bottles for 150 naira each. We found a pharmacy that had a good supply but they wanted 180 each. We checked with several other stores and finally came back to the pharmacy and bought 4 bottles for 170 each.
Before driving back to Dashen we decided we had better stop at the Bonotem Diocese Secretariat and greet Bishop Lerum. We discussed Dashen, Shada and the Bonotem Diocese Secretaritat borehole with the Bishop and said we will be back to retest his well and to chlorinate it. Then retest later. As for Shada and their Blister Spring water source I further explained the Rower pump and told him that if Shada is interested I will look into getting a Rower pump on my next visit. Bishop Lerum told me that he had 5 places he wanted me to visit on this trip. That many people were upset last year when I did not visit their village. I told him that visits to the dioceses was not the purpose of the trip. The purpose was to get the main water program operating so we can start getting clean water to people. If I stop that work to go out on visits it will delay getting water to people. I started with visits in 2006 and it will now be 2010 before we start to do much work.
Back at Dashen they kids that were not in school were busy filling buckets. Rather than doing the chlorination we had lunch with the principal and one teacher. After lunch the teacher came in and asked that we wait until 7 pm to chlorinate so everyone can fill as many buckets as they have so they can have water for the two days that the chlorine sits in the well. We said that was a good idea and we gave instructions on how we wanted the chlorine splashed into the well.
No comments:
Post a Comment