-I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before… but it is hot. In the shade the work is not to hard but the sun just beats you down and keeping hydrated has been an important preoccupation of us all. So today we completely finished the back two buildings, including sealing them with a black smearable substance we call “goop.” The goopiNator, Nate, has become quite adapt at applying the goop.
-Meanwhile, Phil and Julia headed to a nearby school to teach the children and staff about clean water with Steven as a translator (from English to You). The education revolved around sanitation and the importance of handwashing. To keep the kids entertained, they performed two skits. In one, Julia was sick and then handled water. Phil then drank from the same water and then received the same sickness that Julia had. The children and teachers were really attentive, having numerous good questions following the educational workshop.
-With the west side of the main building completed, we started on the eastside. The lattice work went up and we were able to make some good progress, marking out and attaching all of the brackets required to hang the gutters.
-Scott
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Opanga Means Steel
-In the morning we headed over to the Mercy school, which has a mix of regular community students and orphan students. The program seems to be very well put together, as even Chief Michael has enrolled his son in the program. The kids were all really cute and they used the opportunity to demonstrate their singing voices! Their song topics ranged from a song of greeting to educational songs that taught about AIDS. The children at the Mercy School are quick learners and right from the beginning to teach them English and Swahili whereas most schools begin to learn in grade 7. Following the introductions, we presented the students with exam books and pencils, which the teachers were very happy to receive.
-After the Mercy school, we started work at the clinic. During the days work we were able to finish the back east building and get started on the back west building and the front building. As all the gutters were handmade, figuring out how to join two pieces to turn a corner proved to be an interesting task. After a few bumps, however, we were able to figure out the best way to join two gutter pieces while minimizing the amount of water lost. We put in a lot of hardwork today but were very satisfied with our efforts. It also gave us a great opportunity to teach the local handymen the importance of certain design components, such as the first flush system to clean away dirty water from the first rain off the roof.
-Scott
-After the Mercy school, we started work at the clinic. During the days work we were able to finish the back east building and get started on the back west building and the front building. As all the gutters were handmade, figuring out how to join two pieces to turn a corner proved to be an interesting task. After a few bumps, however, we were able to figure out the best way to join two gutter pieces while minimizing the amount of water lost. We put in a lot of hardwork today but were very satisfied with our efforts. It also gave us a great opportunity to teach the local handymen the importance of certain design components, such as the first flush system to clean away dirty water from the first rain off the roof.
-Scott
Monday, July 20, 2009
A Very British/Kenyan Breakfast
-In the morning we got up and had a very British (Kenya was colonized by the Brits) but nice meal of jam, peanut butter, butter, bread, boiled eggs, honey, freshly grilled peanuts (very Kenyan), and the usual serving of tea.
-After some breakie we headed to the clinic where we were greeted by the clinic staff. We then had the opportunity to explain what ewb was about, and how we would be helping to implement a rainwater catchment system with their help. Following the meeting we broke up in two separate teams to tackle several water issues. Team Slow Sand Filter, starring Julia and the clinic driver Freddy set to work putting together the slow sand filter. Team Rainwater, featuring myself, Roy, Nate, Phil, Aaron, a polytanks tech, and Matthew, a local laborer, set out to work on the rainwater system. Aaron began by setting our outlet and overflow taps. You have to be a trapeze artist to conduct this job, because it involves climbing into, and most amazling, out of the very tall water tanks. Afterwards Meanwhile, Nate, Phil, Roy, and I proceeded to layout all the piping and gutters so that we could ensure we had enough. At this time we noticed that our large 15,000 liter tank had been busted during the transport. Polytanks wanted to repair it for us but we decided we didn’t want to start the clinic off with a broken tank and asked for a brand new one to be delivered. They eventually agreed, but they’ll have to make us a new one from scratch and we won’t get it till Friday.
-After lunch, we finally got a chance to start putting a system together. We choose the back east building because it was easy to reach the buildings roof without the use of ladders. Everything was proceeding well until we realized that the nails we purchased to mount the gutter brackets to the wall had no heads! There was no way we could mount the gutters… this was a problem because there was no big hardware store to bail us out. After 2 hours of trying to find a solution, we finally found that local roofing nails would do the trick. Within an hour we had the gutters up on the east side of the back east building. Julia had also finished her demonstration slow sand filter by this point.
-Next we met with the Opanga Water Committee to discuss the possibility of EWB helping them implement a water system for their newly drilled well. They were very enthusiastic and had some good ideas about how to distribute water and who the well could service. Prior to heading to Kenya this year, one of our biggest worries about implementing a large clean water system for the community was who would operate the system and pay for its maintenance. They had already thought about all of this! We also learned that Opanga means steel in Luo… the area that the well is in is called “steel” because this area had the first house to get a steel sheeted roof.
-Scott
-After some breakie we headed to the clinic where we were greeted by the clinic staff. We then had the opportunity to explain what ewb was about, and how we would be helping to implement a rainwater catchment system with their help. Following the meeting we broke up in two separate teams to tackle several water issues. Team Slow Sand Filter, starring Julia and the clinic driver Freddy set to work putting together the slow sand filter. Team Rainwater, featuring myself, Roy, Nate, Phil, Aaron, a polytanks tech, and Matthew, a local laborer, set out to work on the rainwater system. Aaron began by setting our outlet and overflow taps. You have to be a trapeze artist to conduct this job, because it involves climbing into, and most amazling, out of the very tall water tanks. Afterwards Meanwhile, Nate, Phil, Roy, and I proceeded to layout all the piping and gutters so that we could ensure we had enough. At this time we noticed that our large 15,000 liter tank had been busted during the transport. Polytanks wanted to repair it for us but we decided we didn’t want to start the clinic off with a broken tank and asked for a brand new one to be delivered. They eventually agreed, but they’ll have to make us a new one from scratch and we won’t get it till Friday.
-After lunch, we finally got a chance to start putting a system together. We choose the back east building because it was easy to reach the buildings roof without the use of ladders. Everything was proceeding well until we realized that the nails we purchased to mount the gutter brackets to the wall had no heads! There was no way we could mount the gutters… this was a problem because there was no big hardware store to bail us out. After 2 hours of trying to find a solution, we finally found that local roofing nails would do the trick. Within an hour we had the gutters up on the east side of the back east building. Julia had also finished her demonstration slow sand filter by this point.
-Next we met with the Opanga Water Committee to discuss the possibility of EWB helping them implement a water system for their newly drilled well. They were very enthusiastic and had some good ideas about how to distribute water and who the well could service. Prior to heading to Kenya this year, one of our biggest worries about implementing a large clean water system for the community was who would operate the system and pay for its maintenance. They had already thought about all of this! We also learned that Opanga means steel in Luo… the area that the well is in is called “steel” because this area had the first house to get a steel sheeted roof.
-Scott
Sunday, July 19, 2009
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
-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
Saturday, July 18, 2009
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
-Scott
Friday, July 17, 2009
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
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
Thursday, July 16, 2009
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
-Scott
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