Progress On Both Projects

Yesterday (Wednesday) was quite warm and sunny--- high 80's ---but we had a thunderstorm late in the afternoon that cooled it off a bit. As usual, we walked the mile-or-so dirt/mud rutted road to Akasalaba to have dinner with the Young Men Drillers and QEnergy crews.  A cook has been hired there to feed all of us this week.  Michael and Tusabe, from the BCDC, gave us rides back to the school on their motorcycles.  They and other motorcyclists in Uganda handle their bikes with a high level of agility.  Very impressive.

 

Erin and Jim have been spending nearly all their time at the well site in Akasalaba with the Young Men Drillers crew.  They stopped drilling the second hole at 13 meters, installed a casing and are now developing that well.  Apparently the flow rate in the second hole is meeting expectations better than than the first hole.

 

John has been spending his time at the biogas digester construction site at the school with QEnergy.  The main 15-meter trench is complete and the sides and ends are now being beveled. That work should be done early tomorrow. The brick effluent tank was also started and is half complete.  Tomorrow they will start bricking in the short walls that run along both sides of the 15-meter long hole. They will also start digging post holes to support the corrugated roof.  We are on track to install the bag next Tuesday and fill it with a truck-load of cow manure being sourced from Mubende, an hours drive from here. Here's a new learning: Umar, the crew chief, said that someone will need to get inside the 1.5 meter diameter by 1 meter high input tank when goat manure pellets are being added.  He said the pellets need to be squished (he bent down and made a motjon of doing this with his hands) before water is added.  Apparently if the pellets don't get squished they don't decompose very well on their way through the digester bag. We engineers need to find a simple solution to this task to make it less objectionable and more sanitary.