How Many Cows

In my last post, “Drilling in Chiluba (Part 1)”, I mentioned that my next post would demonstrate the pumps we built, however I still don’t have many photos, so I can just show a couple shots from when we were testing the pumps.

I haven’t been able to retrieve photos from my “mostly dead” phone yet (I’m still hopeful!).

I’m leaving for Haiti in a couple hours so I have a replacement phone now (thanks to some awesome people from Hydromissions!)

I’ve had a really quick turnaround this time (especially for the time difference between East Africa and our East Coast). I did spend Thanksgiving with my family in Montreal Canada, which was totally awesome, but I am a bit worn out from travel. Haiti will be my last project for 2016.

Back to Malawi…
We built two different pumps to show various ways to retrieve water. A simple pvc pump (two “one-way” or “no return” valves working together to lift the water) and a rope pump (continuos rope with gaskets that lift water in a circular motion).

Rope pumps are not a favorite unless you cannot find or make valves. The rope pump is OK if it is your only option (so it is good to learn), but it is hard to keep contaminants out of the well with a rope pump (the rope is exposed to dirty hands and the well casing is also uncovered). So far, I have only had to build one for a well when there was no other material available (South Sudan).

We showed both because it was hard to find valves at first. All the material ended up coming from three different town markets with the furthest being a 3-hour mini bus (packed van) trip. The bigger city (3 hours away) and last place we checked ended up having all the supplies needed so that’s where the drill team will go instead of going to three different markets like we did originally.

Below is a video from the Malawi project. I made this video a few nights before leaving Malawi. Right after I finished, I sent it as a draft to my sister (compressed) but since my phone broke shortly thereafter (about an hour after I sent the video), I’m thrilled this video made it out over the network!

This shows the mountainside, the local church, the drilling method, pump building and the final result – water!!!

*All of the music in the video is from the church service so make sure your volume is up 🙂 *

Chiduba Malawi Well Drilling Project Video

I’m at the airport now (my favorite place for updates… 😉 ) waiting for my flights to Haiti. I will be working with a large team lead by a young women, Natasha, from Trinidad. Our team will be a combo of volunteers from Trinidad, Haiti and the USA.

We will be attempting to manually drill a well by percussion. It is a difficult manual process, but necessary because Haiti is complicated for manual drilling (since it is mostly rock). Our Hydromissions equipment has only ever been successful along the Western coast of Haiti, but I’ve attempted in the South and far Northeast. I’m looking forward to assisting this team and hope this approach is successful!

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It’s “Giving Tuesday” today!

If you are interested in donating to these water projects, please go to Hydromissions for tax-deductible donations.

If you would like to specifically support the goat program, please go to “Gift a Goat & MORE!” (also tax-deductible).