Sunday, June 3, 2007

Sunday!

Today was our first real day working in the rain… the weather has been beautiful and sunny up until this point. Sarah and “Dr. Steve” spent a lot of time troubleshooting the circuit board in the resistivity box, but much to our dismay it did not work when we got back out into the field.
On the positive side, the man who was coming to fix the well came and has determined the problem, and he will return tomorrow with the appropriate replacement parts. The team is very excited to offer this temporary solution to the whole water problem! And for only about one hundred U.S dollars. The people here are also very excited and impressed.
Today, Julie and Barney spent hours surveying and made excellent progress. They mapped out the entire hill that leads from the town center to the school and then across to the chief’s house. They also surveyed several miles of the major North-South road in the village. Most of this surveying was done during downpours of rain, which made the work interesting to say the least. At one point, Barney and Julie had to construct a shelter of leaves and branches and a poncho (that they used for the backpack instead of themselves) to keep the backpack dry and the data safe. Good thing Barney has watched a lot of Man vs. Wild.
The rest of the team spent the day seeking out more water points, taking more samples, and hiking through rough terrain to find the spring sources. We are waiting on the bacteria tests to finish culturing on the samples that we collected on Friday and have our work cut out for us tonight getting more fecal coliform tests set up.
Tomorrow is a very exciting day for us. We are told that the entire village is gathering for a meeting with us at the town center. At this time we will go over the water committee, educate them on the water that they are using, and conduct as many health surveys as possible. If all goes well, their broken well will be fixed then too!
Get excited, we are making major progress here! As always, we are thinking of everyone back at home and hope that you are thinking of us. Au Revoir until we get another chance to post!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ginger

Sounds like a lot of hard, but interesting work. Wish I were there!

Anonymous said...

Dad Fortunato
Glad to hear that everything is back under control. What a great stroke of luck in finding the old well and then finding the guy that can fix it. It's a perfect temporary fix until you can get the new system designed and constructed. Hope the rains don't hinder your work too much. Good luck with your town meeting tomorrow. Love to all and stay safe and enjoy.

Anonymous said...

It sounds amazing there and like you are really helping the people a lot. Good luck with it all. East Pea misses you sam!!!

Anonymous said...

Kristin

Good thing all that discovery channel Barney watches is coming in handy!
I hope the trip keeps being as successful as it seems to be!
ps, miss you Barney!