The future of the project?

-In the morning we met with Johnson Anyumba, who is a geologist from the Groundwater Solutions Drilling Company. His company recently drilled a well for the community of Luanda. Julia and I had discovered a couple of days earlier, when speaking to Michael, that the community had drilled a well. Michael told me that the community was concerned about the quality of its water, especially after our water quality demonstrations last year. They had put together a water board for the community and had developed a system to help maintain it. We were very impressed, and this actually will help us implement the next part of our water project next year. Anyways, back to the story at hand, Johnson had just drilled the new Opanga well and was briefing us its metrics, i.e. the safe water yield, pump intake depth, etc.
-In the middle of the meeting Phil and Nate arrived from the Kisumu airport (they were picked up by our driver, Julia, and Benson).
-Following the meeting, we tried to catch the ferry but we missed it because we found out two lids for the tanks were missing. As a result, we ended up driving to Luanda…. It took us around five hours, including a stop in Homa Bay for lunch. Phil and Nate had just arrived in Kenya for the first time, so they quite enjoyed seeing the countryside
-We eventually arrived in Launda, where we had the opportunity to visit the VIAGANCO clinic. They’ve painted the building since EWB was last there, and the place is looking quite nice. They’ve also already wired the building for electricity and are only waiting for the government to commission the transformer down the street. We were able to see our new purchased tanks placed on the cement platforms we had designed… the whole setup was looking quite nice. Now all we have to do is run some guttering, piping, troubleshoot some problems, and we’ll have ourselves a real rainwater catchment system!
- Scott

Our tanks arrive!

This morning we met Roy, our team advisor, at the Airport and then headed back into town and had breakfast at the New Victorian hotel (with Roy, Michael Benson, Julia, and our driver Seth). We then headed to Arihunt where we reviewed the changes we made with Roy to see if he was okay with them. While we were at the hardware store, Polytanks arrived with our order of four water tanks.... they were massive. I mean absolutely huge. Julia and I had seen 3000 L and 2000 L tanks elsewhere in Kenya and were impressed by their size... but this was a whole new level. We had foru tanks in all, with the 6000 liter tanks being short but very fat and the 10k L and 15K L tanks proving to be monsters! We then spent a good 2 or 3 hours making sure everything we ordered was loaded on the truck and to our pleasing. After finalizing our order we visited the Nakumat and a stationary store to get some writing books and pencils/pens for the children at the local schools.
-Scott

Design Modifications & Viagenco

In the morning Julia and I headed over to Arihunt to discuss our order in more detail. Pradip, the shops owner, was in today and he proved to be quite knowledgeable in the parts needed for a tank install. His advice was quite good and we used a lot of his modifications. We also learned that the gutters are all hand made... if we had know this in the states it would have been very beneficial, as we came up with some rather weird methods to make sure we captured all the water!

Around noon Michael from Viagenco showed up and we went to lunch with him at the New Victoria Hotel... the food was decent, though not excellent. We then ran by Arihunt again to get his input on the design changes to the rainwater system. He had some good insight, and provided some new details about the concrete slab which he recently completed for the tanks. Around 6pm Benson from Viagenco also arrived in town. Nurin, the nephew of the hardware store, offered to show us the local scene and brought us out to this really nice restaurant which featured both Kenyan and Indian foods. I tried some "turbo naan," while good... proceeded to make me sweat like mad.
-Scott

Kisumu & the start of our EWB work

Julia and I woke up early (5:20 am) in order to catch the early matatu from Kakamega National Forest to Kisumu. During the ride from Kakamega town to Kisumu I chose to sit in the front row with my bag... that was a mistake. The front row has a raised floor because of the motor. The ride was very uncomfortable to say the least. We arrived in Kisumu after an hour and a half much to my legs delight . From there we checked into the "Sooper Guesthouse," which had adequote rooms (about similar to any cheap hostel). Julia and I then headed out to start surveying the hardware scene in Kisumu. To our delight, we found our local vendor was located 3 doors down from our hostel! Ater a quick visit to the hardware store we unsuccessfully tried to contact the Lake Victoria Water Services Board, but we did speak with three other government organizations with names very similar to the LVWSB, leading to some confusion on my part as to what department did what.
-Scott

Arrival in Kenya

Julia and I have arrived in Kenya early to work on another project before we get started on our EWB work. For the next three weeks we'll be meeting with several NGOs, including WWF, Nature Kenya, and Birdlife to talk about REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). We'll also head to South Nandi Forest, which was once part of Kakamega Forest, to train Nature Kenya on Carbon Surveying. While Julia grew up in Kenya, these next couple of weeks while serve as a great time to acclimatize to not only the higher alitude (most places we'll be traveling will be higher than 5000 feet) but to draw accustomed to the local customs and accents. Hopefully i'll also pick up some Swahili.
-Scott

TAC Approval and Tickets!

EWB international approved our trip today... and first thing that we did was buy our tickets to Kenya! We are excited to get out in the field and implement the project that we have been working on all year. This is the first time to Kenya/Africa for 3 of us, and so we are all excited!

Scott

Water Tank Slab Design

I've been working on the design of the concrete slab for the water tanks... we have 4 tanks, with the largest tank being 10,000 liters. Thats 10,000 kgs of water when full! Thought I'd share the most recent design with the world. Its is still subject to change at this point though.

Scott