A woman fills Midomo with water from a watering hole in Mwingi district

In June I visited the Mwingi district of Eastern Kenya, piloting the first Midomo water purifiers with Red Button Design.  Mwingi is a few hours drive East of Nairobi on the dusty road to Garissa, it’s a small town of 10,000 people that serves as a service stop for the Somali truckers who race khat harvests from farms in western Kenya over the border to sell fresh in Somalia.

Typical of much of Eastern Kenya, Mwingi district is a semi-arid rural area with a high level of poverty.  Many people rely on agriculture for both sustenance and a daily wage, which often leaves families vulnerable to a climate that grows increasingly unpredictable. A recent study of communities in the district found that 80% of people do not use an improved source of potable water and the same proportion do not have adequate sanitation facilities.

Farmers in Mwingi are used to dry conditions, however in recent years rainfall has become even more scarce.  Looking out over a depleted watering hole made by damming a small stream with earth, a local farmer told me that the April rains – which usually bring a month of daily downpours – this year lasted just two days.  But in Mwingi, despite the ongoing drought crops are still grown with surprising success, farmers have moved from growing the maize (made popular by Western diets) to drought-resistant crops such as green grams, cow peas, sorghum and millet. 6,000 farmers in Mwingi are part of a agricultural resilience programme being run by FARM Africa, which teaches techniques for increasing water efficiency and growing a range of drought-resistant crops along with supporting pastoralists by supplying seeds and equipment.

FARM-Africa is a British NGO founded in 1985 and now working across eastern Africa.  It promises to be an extremely good partner for RDB in terms of their approach to the development of rural independence. They recognize that while 80% of Africans survive on the produce of their own smallholdings, it is here – in small, often isolated rural communities – that agricultural development is best directed.  Working with smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and forest communities, FARM-Africa aims to develop the skills and resources within rural communities that will enable them to grow more food, keep their livestock healthy, and manage their natural resources in a sustainable way. The dryland farming projects that they are facilitating in Mwingi – including the introduction of drip-irrigation systems and water-saving techniques such as the zai pit – are increasingly important as the climate in eastern Africa becomes ever more unreliable.

A giraffe stands in Nairobi's National Park, against a cityscape skyline

Nairobi is young by Capital City standards, and it has the feel of a place in its teenage years, big and brash and excited but still not quite sure of itself, and certainly not happy about having to tidy its bedroom.  Founded on a slightly elevated piece of swampy ground that happened to sit conveniently on the Mombassa-Kampala railway it started life as a humble supply depot in 1899. Named after a Maasai watering hole known as Enkare Nairobi (place of cool waters) the fresh water and a climate surprisingly familiar to the new European settlers encouraged rapid growth.  Just six years after it was founded Nairobi became the administrative capital of British East Africa, despite in that time suffering an outbreak of the plague and a fire that completely destroyed the old town.

That Nairobi has landed abruptly upon the wild Kenyan savanna, rather than evolving slowly there can be felt as you survey the Acacia-punctured grassland of the Nairobi National Park from the raised teak balcony of the Ole-Sereni Hotel’s bar. The Nairobi National Park is the only place in the world where you can find a national park bordering a capital city.  Sitting at the precipice, sipping at an espresso whilst separated from the stomping ground of wild Rhino only by slight elevation and a meticulously placed zen water garden, it is easy to feel like the inhabitant of the zoo rather than the visitor.

I’ve been working on developing appropriate technology in Sierra Leone, with the goal of starting several Social Enterprises based around sustainable water provision. In my view marketing approaches could dramatically increase the sustainability of the water wells and hand pumps we install. In many cases hand pumps are out of action within 1 year of being installed, and this often seems to be down to a lack of motivation from within the community to maintain the equipment. Wells put in by NGOs and governments are often part of big water access projects motivated by headline ‘development’ statistics and donor marketing. They rarely seem to be requested by the actual communities themselves. In other words the installation of wells is ‘push’ driven by the donor/NGO rather than being demanded by the community.

I wonder what would happen if NGOs and Governments, or even local Social Enterprises like ours focussed more intelligent marketing at beneficiaries? Could we create a strong emotional demand for wells, even though they are donated at no cost to the community?

I believe that sometime in our rush to install ‘life-saving’ products and systems, we often forget about the emotional needs that underline all human motivations…

A broken rope-washer pump installed last year in a small community on the road to Pejehun

The rope on the rope-and-washer pump in the compound has broken again today. It happens about once a every 2-3 weeks and it means until it can be repaired there is no way to collect water without making the 15 minute walk to the well down the road.  The interesting thing is though that this event doesn’t seem to worry anyone in the compound enough to motivate them to repair the rope in the same way that, say, running out of fuel for the generator would.

The, perhaps more pertinant thing, is that the same attitudes exist in rural villages where there isn’t another well just down the road.  Villages where the broken well is the only source of safe water for the community, the alternative being a long walk to the nearest stream.

The people I’ve met here in Sierra Leone are generally some of the most resourceful tinkerers I have met anywhere.  Their capacity to repair vehicles, generators, even mobile phones (need a new circuit board or screen soldering in? No problem…) yet when it comes to pumps and water supply, the motivation just doesn’t seem to be there.  And yet these communities fully understand the risks they face drinking unsafe water.

If I can return to the UK with at least a tentative understanding of why this disparity exists I’ll really have achieved something.

The most common tool we use is a ‘clay cutter’ which consists of a weighted tube, open at the cutting end that fills with consolidated clay as the tool is dropped. Once full the tool is brought to the surface and emptied. With this tool in good ground conditions we can make progress of about 2m an hour., which means in theory at least we can hit the water table during the first day of drilling.  However there are a number of problems we face which slow things down, or can halt progress altogether:

1) Hole not straight:  The tools we use are weighted and so act as plumb-bobs to a certain extent, keeping the hole straight and vetical. However differences in soil density, small rocks or just the swinging of the dropping tool can mean that the dropping tool move off course. Small deviations are not really an issue as the pumps we install are pretty tolerant, however when the tool his a stone at the base of the hole it can deflect off at a sharp angle.  This can lead to an abandoned hole or, at worst a tool stuck in the ground.

2) Rocky soil: A few different types of rock are common in the areas we drill, ranging from soft sedimentary rocks which can be crubled in the hand to impenetrable igneous (or ‘iron’) rocks.  We can generally tell when we are approaching a rocky layer when the sound of the drill hitting the ground changes to a deep boom, followed by a metallic ‘ping’ in the case of igneous rocks.  Hearing that metallic sound signals the end of drilling at that location, even far more expensive rotary drilling equipment struggles with hard rock.  But getting through the softer rock also poses problems, anytime progress slows down the drill tool begins to cut away at the sides of the hole, slowly making the hole wider and more shallow.  This can lead to the formation of a cavity below ground, which is then at risk of collapsing, possibly trapping the tool.  Repeatedly striking even soft rocks also gradually damages the tips of the drilling tools and so we often have to abandon a hole eventually after hitting rocks anyway.  Moving to a new location and trying again often resolves this problem as in most cases the rocks are not in a contiuous layer, however much time is wasted digging half-completed wells and the drilling team is only paid for successful wells.

3) Digging through a saturated zone: Hitting water when digging a well should generally be a time for celebration, although even this can pose problems.  When we hit the primary aquifer (the ‘water table’) we continue to dig into the saturated material because the depth of the well in a saturated zone affects the maximum yield of the well, as well as ensuring that water is available year-round.  At the end of the dry season, at the beginning of my trip, we only hit water at the primary aquifer, and we only had to dig a couple of metres into the aquifer to ensure a sustainable well with a yield good enough for a typical handpump.  However now the rains are drenching the gound almost every night it is common to find saturated zones above the main aquifer, as the recharge water accumulates above zones of consolidated clay.  The problem with drilling through saturated clay or sand is that this material is less structurally stable than dry material, and so the risk of a cave-in is  far higher.  Once the borehole has started to cave drilling has to be stopped, if we’re in the primary aquifer when this happens we may be deep enough to complete the well, otherwise the hole must be abandoned.  We can typically only reach about 2m into saturated material before it starts to cave, which is adequate at the end of the dry season, when the water table is at its lowest.  At other times, or if an electric pump is required however we need to be able to drill at least 5m into an aqifer to guarentee yield and sustainability.

I hope that a casing I am currently designing will be able to aleviate all these problems.  Drilling through a series of joined pipes should keep the tool from cutting away at the walls of the hole and ensure that the tool cuts a straight and vertical hole, even when the ground conditions are rocky.  The casing will also sure up the sides of the hole when drilling through instable material, preventing a collapse.

Typical casing used in commercial drilling operations is custom-built from 6″ steel pipe, threaded at each end to join many pipes together.  The problem with using this however come down to cost and availability: it costs about £200 per 1.5m length and it would need to be imported from the UK, at further expense.  So  my challenge has been to design a solution, find suitable materials locally, build and test it.  Now that the design is complete and the materials found we’re ready to begin building and testing.  With a big drilling contract for a new landmark eco-project in the rainforest close to the Liberian border relying on our ability to dig wells in difficult conditions the pressure is on to make this work…

I am learning a little Mende here and there, greetings and niceities mainly to placate excited strangers, or to get a better price at the market.  But I can’t learn enough about Krio, the English-based Creole language used as a universal lingua franca.  It is often used to me by strangers and, given the right mindset, can often be just about understandable in real time.

So here’s a little taster of some of the Krio I’ve managed to pick up (imagine tonality and hand gestures used to add emphasis!):

Dis work ya, a noh go ebul am – I am not going to be able to to that

A noh lehk dat wan de – I don’t like it

OO wi go si bak – OK, I’ll see you later

Aw di bodi? – How are you?

A wehl, aw yu sehf? – I’m good, and you?

Dis motoka done broke – The car is broken

Us wan yu want? – Which one do you want?

Ohmos a geth for pe?  – How much do I have to pay?

Tumara – Tomorrow

Tide – Today

Nehxt tumara – The day after tomorrow

A de go – I’m going

A de lan lili bit – I have learnt a little bit

tehl gohd tehnki – Thanks to god (“tell god thankyou”)

smohl smohl – slowly, carefully, small

Usai yu de wok? – Where do you work?

Foh kohf – Please leave(!)

But I can explain, a few things have happened since the last post which I hope will go some way to explaining the silence:

1) The charger for my mac blew up  in an internet cafe I was using in Bo, and despite attacking it with a knife I have failed to get it running.  So I’ve been borrowing computers and using the other internet cafe in town to get online.

2) Work has really been hotting up, with the biodiesel reactor now half completed, and some very exciting opportunities for drilling wells that are, technically, at the edge of our current capabilities theres much to do and little time.

3) I’ve somehow managed to get myself settled here, and so I’m having trouble distinguishing which particular experiences here are notable…

But, now that I’ve been ‘reminded’ by a couple of people that this thing still exists, blogging will resume…

Buying roasted meat from the Shell Mingo market

Down the road from where I’m staying outside Bo, about 20 minutes walk towards town along road newly tarred by the Italians is a intersection.  Turn left and you’re on the Freetown highway, recently completed by the might of the military sounding Chinese 7th Railway Engineering Division. Turn right and you’re on the road to Kenema, passing the half-built football stadium a new open air church and then hotels and compounds filled with Chinese contractors.  Straight on takes you along the route of the old british railway line, past the steel shuttered welding shops, whitewashed churches with painted glass windows, a blue and white painted mosque and into Bo Town itself.

But this intersection, a flat concrete roundabout know as “Shell Mingo” is interesting for more than the eventual destinations of its offshoots.  Every night Shell Mingo comes alive with market stalls, milling customers crowding both sides of the streets, perusing the offerings being lit by small kerosene flames or just passing on the day’s news with groups of friends.  The most established stalls are wooden shacks, just large enough for a shopkeeper to stand between the laden shelves which line the walls, roofs made waterproof by white plastic sheeting bearing the faded blue logo of the UNHCR.  The smaller stalls are simply wide concave trays, carried on the head through the busy Bo streets during the day, put down to rest atop stools at night, wherever a space can be found.

Mainly the smaller stalls sell food, small loaves of finger-like bread are stacked on end, cassava, corn cobs and chicken are grilled on sheets of punctured steel balanced on charcoal stoves, dried fish, pierced from mouth to tail with a wooden skewer are stacked in arcs surrounding the lamp.  The larger establishments sell everything from strength pills and “protector” condoms to candles, cigarettes and penny sweets.

The mass of people wandering from stall to stall, parting every few seconds to let through a motorbike before engulfing the action again makes the scene appear like the post-impact shot of a disaster movie.  The effect is enhanced by the light smoke from refuse fires that glows hazy in front of the kerosene lamps, barely illuminating the half-finished concrete buildings that surround the intersection, providing stoops for those wanting to finish the evening’s purchases in peace.

An astounding thing happens in Shell Mingo when it rains, almost before the first drop touches the tarred ground the meandering mass turns into a shoal, splitting in two and sweeping under the safety of the zinc eaves of the larger stalls. A few seconds later the smaller stalls are covered and replaced on the head of the proprietor, who then perches on the stool under their makeshift umbrella.  By the time the raindrops have started beating on the dry ground Shell Mingo has all but disappeared, retreated to safety.  Once the rains finish the entire shoal returns to its feeding ground and the choreography resumes.

I have barely seen myself in a mirror since I arrived here 6 weeks ago, it is strange, coming from the UK to be now living in a place where personal hygiene and image are outsourced so readily to family and friends.

My building in the Fawundu Compound

My home-away-from-home in SL is the Fawundu family compound, a collection of 3 small buildings on a plot of land just outside Bo town.  Senesi bought the land, covered in trees at the time, during the civil war which spanned 1991-2001.  He built the 3 residences, a well and a small shelter which has become the focus of the compound, where every night the family gathers to talk love, life, religion and politics (in that order).  The land is still scattered with trees and the neighbours pass through regularly to lift water from the well.  There are about 20 people living in the compound, (“we are plenty”) but the numbers swell and contract as friends, family and connections ebb and flow.  

Bo itself is a strange place, although it holds the title of Sierra Leone’s ‘Second City’ it feels more like a gold-rush trading outpost. Everything has a temporary feeling, as if the entire town was put up in great haste with no real plan, and that it could all disappear just as easily.  Reinforcing bars still stick out of poured concrete buildings as if to hint at the possibility of a second storey, whenever the time is right.  I guess it takes great faith to put down roots so soon after 10 years of brutal civil war.

Lebanese builder’s merchants and diamond traders fill most of the simple, unpainted concrete buildings which stand behind the chaotic lines of  street traders.  The Lebanese came to West Africa as economic refugees in 1893 after a silk-worm and subsequent agricultural crises hit Lebanon.  Their knack for business shows in the almost complete control they hold over trade and enterprise in Bo, it is always to the Lebanese that I go when I need to buy tools and materials for my work.  

During the day the air is filled with the sound of small generators, supplying power to the myriad of street kiosks, offering to charge mobile phones or perhaps offering the rare possibility of a cold drink.  The only places, however, that can offer reliable respite from the heat are the air-conditioned banks and the mini-market, both supplied with grid power from a distant hydro-electric power station.  

Sightings of white people are up to 5 now, after briefly catching eye-contact with a pretty young woman, a passenger in an MSF Landcrusier passing me on the back of a motorbike taxi.  I’m not sure whether the surprise in her face was because of seeing me on local transport, or whether she was still shocked by the general chaos of it all.