3/18 Wednesday

On Water Project:

- They are now 11 meters deep with the second hole in Akasalaba.  The first well was drilled to 10 meters but the flow was around 15 L/min. and the target was to get to 16-18.

- So they are drilling another well about 20 meters away. Yesterday they hit rock at about 9-10 meters and planned to punch through it today. It turned out the "rock' was hard clay and after soaking all night they were able to drill through it this morning. They were at 11.5 meters a few hours ago and pulling up a clay-sand mixture.  Looks like the water flow is better than the first hole so the morale of the team is back up.

 

On Biogas:

- On Tuesday QEnergy began their work.  Great crew.  Easy to work with and very accomodating.  We layed out the site with stakes and strings and by 10 am the 3 diggers hired by Sister Anita started digging. The diggers first demanded we pay them 4 times more than what QEnergy was willing to pay saying it was a 4-day job.  QEnergy (Umar) said it was a one day job and he would pay them much less.  They agreed to dig and were shown a wooded stick of the length (about 1.5 meters) we needed them to dig the hole.  Two of them dug and the other one, their leader, just watched --- and they all left shortly after 3 pm.  The hole was about 1/3 done then.

- Today the diggers returned and claimed the stick was longer and refused to dig unless they were paid more money.  A lot of arguing ensued.  I got Sister Janet and Anita involved.  Sister Anita is decisive.  She walked up, listend to both sides of the story and quickly fired the diggers. They said they wouldn't leave.  She said fine, just stand there but your not getting any water.  They finally were paid for yesterdays brief work and they left.

- Sister Rita then asked her farm hands to do the digging.  One of them showed up, did a little digging and left.

- QEnergy then went into Akasalaba (about a kilometre away) and hired 3 guys who are now doing the digging.  So we lost about a day's worth of digging time but are making progress again.

- Also, yesterday the manure/water input tank was built of brick and mortar.  But on checking it was found that the diameter and volume were too small and it was too close to the digester hole.  So after a lot of conferring between Umar and Sandra, they busted the unit out today and they are rebuilding it to spec.

 

Overall, the weather is unseasonably hot, the sky is nearly cloudless and the ground is hard as this is the end of the dry season. Drilling and digging isn't easy. Haven't had any rain since we arrived. We are all doing fine, walking a lot and sweating even more.