Hauling sand and gravel

We need sand and gravel to make the culverts, so we use the native materials. The villagers dug sand and gravel out of the stream in Lowuma, and in Gbeleyankei, they got gravel from around the village. The whole village got involved, even the children. In Gbeleyankei, they had to haul the sand from a stream 1/3 mile away. The sand and gravel from the stream was nice and clean, but the gravel from around the village was not clean. It had palm kernels, sticks, dog poop, and other things that don't make for strong concrete. So, the gravel had to be cleaned. There's not nearly enough water for washing it, so we screened it with a fenner. The fenner is a basket used for sifting rice to clean it. I tried my hand at it, as you can see in the photo. Four women worked all day to clean enough gravel for the culverts. In Lowuma, the well crew used a mosquito net to sieve the silt from the sand and gravel. We had to use the materials that were available. The villagers had to haul the cement, tools, and pump from Fassama; we don't want to haul any more than is necessary.

Please take a look at my photo album. I have lots more photos there. The link is on the main blog page. Also, I welcome your comments and questions!

Preparation of Well Culverts

While the digging is going on, we are also preparing concrete culverts for casing the well. The culverts are 36 inches outside diameter and have a 2 inch thickness. Wire mesh is placed in the center for reinforcement. After the concrete cures, the form is peeled off. Koko came up with this method to replace their previous method which uses a heavy steel form. The steel form is very difficult to carry by hand through the jungle. The sheet metal was easy to transport, and it worked very well. We made 19 culverts in Lowuma and 17 in Gbeleyankei. They were allowed to cure a minimum of 10 days before installation.

By the way, if you are wondering how to pronouce "Gbeleyankei", it is Bee-yan-kay. Accent on the second sylable. Lowuma is contracted to Lo-ma. The Kuwaa like the "Gb". It sounds mostly like a "B".

I learned a little of the tribal languages. The people in both villages are part of the Kuwaa Tribe, but they speak different languages. In Gbeleyankei, they speak mostly Kuwaa, and in Lowuma it is mostly Bandi. When you greet someone in the morning, you say "Good morning," and then you ask them how was their sleeping place. They should respond, "No fault with God". That's a little different, isn't it? When speaking English (the national language of Liberia), you greet them, "Good morning. How are you?" and they respond, "Thank God". They are glad to be alive. Greeting people is important to them. Relationships are important. Americans need to slow down a bit to be culturally appropriate in Liberia. In the morning, the villagers walk around and greet each other before starting their day. During our assessment trek, I walked around with Pastor Chris in the morning.

Digging a Well - African Style

Digging a well African style is not like drilling a well in the U.S. In the isolated Belle forest in Liberia, we had no electricity, no power tools, no fuels, and the only transportation was by foot. The villagers carried the tools and materials on their heads for about a 7 hr walk from the end of the road. We hired a well technician named Koko to plan and supervise the well installation and to monitor it after completion. Koko had a crew, including John, Justine, Mambu, and Morris. My last posting had a photo of the crew posing by the well culverts in Lowuma.

The well is dug by hand with a pick and a "digger" or "pingaling". The digger has a sharp, flat surface to smooth the side of the hole. The dirt is shoveled into a bucket and hauled to the surface with a rope. Usually, the hole is 40 inches in diameter, and the crew climb up and down the sides of the hole, using small dugouts for toe-holds. In Lowuma, Mambu started the hole before we arrived, and he made the hole with a 40 inch radius, instead of diameter, so it was too wide to climb with toe-holds. They used a ladder or they pulled each other out with a rope.

In the photos, you can see the tools used for digging. The pingaling has a long handle and looks like the ice breaker we used in Alaska. There is another long piece of bamboo standing up next to the pingaling; we used this to measure the hole diameter. You can see Mambu's back in the photo. It's back-breaking work!

Another photo shows John coming out of the well on the ladder. The ladder is home-made from native materials. The people are very capable in making things from their native materials.

Justine is coming out of the hole with a rope, after we reached the limit of the ladders. There wasn't any OSHA representative on site, so I just tried to keep people alive. It is risky work.

Morris is a villager from Lowuma who volunteered to help by pulling the dirt out of the hole. He then joined us in going to the next village of Gbeleyankei. I think he learned something from the experience, and we enjoyed his company.

The hole was dug until we reached water, and then we tried to get another 6 feet. When the water was coming in too fast to keep up by bailing it out by hand with 2 buckets, we had to call it quits. At the end, Justine and Mambu were digging in waist-deep water. The Lowuma well was dug to a depth of 35 ft, with about 4 ft of water depth on March 17. During the rainy season, the water depth will be more, and at the end of the dry season, it may be less. We bailed the well and got more than 100 buckets of water (about 300 gallons) in an hour, so the water influx was strong. I believe that it will be sufficient for the village. At any rate, we had worked for 3 days to deepen the well and were unable to, with the tools at hand.

That's all for now. I'll continue with more details on how the wells were installed.

Please give me some comments / feedback about the photos or questions about what we did. Are the photos too large and causing delays in loading? I know that not everyone has the good internet capabilities that I now have. Later!

Success!!

We have successfully installed wells in 2 villages that previously had none! That is so amazing. It is life-changing for so many people.

The villages of Lowuma and Gbeleyankei are now filling buckets of water from a well, instead of from a stream. The wells were completed last week, after I had left the jungle. The well technician, Koko, said that they celebrated by dancing. I wish that I could have been there, but maybe I can go back next year and see it for myself. I'm posting a photo of Gbeleyankei's stream here.

It was such a wonderful experience for me that I dont know for sure where to start recounting it to you. I decided to tell you the good news first - the success - rather than chronologically. I will continue to make postings on the blog with details of the well construction and my experiences.

The work was all done by hand, as there is no power in the villages (just manpower). The whole village was involved in the work, from bringing sand from the creek to lowering the culverts into the wells. I'm posting a few photos here, to whet your appetite. The people are very hard-working and strong. They dug sand out of the stream to mix concrete for the culverts. In Gbeleyankei (pronounced Bee-yan-kay), they carried buckets of sand on their heads for about 1/3 of a mile. I walked out there with them and took photos, but didn't offer to carry anything back. Women much older than me did, though. I've had a comfortable life, that's for sure.

Besides the 2 new wells, we plan to repair 4 wells that are currently not pumping - in Gatema, Konjade, Kenata, and Kalata. The Gatema repair will be substantial, requiring installation of more culverts. The other 3 wells only require the pump to be set deeper, as they are currently above the water level.

More to come.....

Safe and Sound in Billings

I am back in Billings, safe and sound. Well, I'm not so sure about the "sound" part - at least mentally! I'm very jet lagged and tired, so my mind is not too sharp. The trip was 35 hrs, from the time the plane left Monrovia until arrival at the Billings airport. Talk about a marathon.
And now, today is April 15, tax day! What bad timing. I have my extension application ready to mail now. The forms weren't even out when I left in December.
It is really nice to be home again. The cats were happy to see me. I was happy to see them, too, and my bed, and my shower! And good internet access again. My apartment upgraded the speed to 8 Mb/sec. I think it was about 0.4 kb/sec in Monrovia - when it was working. So, I will be able to upload lots of photos. I promise to start that tomorrow.