We reached a milestone today and the thing that marked its happening was a sound. That sound was a stream of water hitting the bottom of the tank on the water tower. Pardon my geeking out for a moment, but that sound represented clean water being lifted from nearly 800 feet below ground, pushed upward by a 3 horsepower 3-phase pump powered by 17 solar panels rated at 4,760 watts. Technical specs aside, this sound is the result of a lot of preparation by the team from Kenya Hope, a bunch of work by local contractors to put in the borehole and put up the solar panels, lots of hard work by members of the Kimelok community, some of them coming from quite far away by motorbike or by hitching a ride with someone, and, lastly, work by a couple old guys from USA who helped build the water tower.
As one of those old guys from USA, it has been a joy and a privilege to serve in this way. My hope is that the least of these in this community will know the God that I know:
...I was thirsty and you gave me drink... Matthew 25:35
To get to this milestone, we had to finish welding some supports on the tower, we had to install a water inlet fitting at the top of the tank, some distribution lines needed to be buried, a float shut-off switch needed to be installed in the tank, and probably several other details that went on that escaped my notice. Once again, I’ll let the pictures tell most of the story...
We all gathered in the shade under the solar panels for a brief time of devotions. Pastor led in Swahili and Duncan translated into English. Whatever the language, the prayers of the saints were lifted before the God who made us all.
...and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Revelation 8:4
Duncan and his guys finished digging trenches to bring water to a tap outside of Irene’s house, to the small garden beyond the house, and to a tap just outside of the fence by the road. This tap will be available to the community. These trenches were all hand-dug, using the same pick-like tools that are used to plant corn and do other field work. They later backfilled the trenches after the pipes were laid.
I worked on finishing up the welding on the tower.
Willie, Dave, and William ran the supply pipe up to the top of the tank. We had forgotten to install the inlet fitting when the tank was on the ground so someone had to go inside the tank to help install it. Duncan usually does this, but he wasn’t tall enough to reach the top, so William was chosen because he is tall and could reach it standing on a bucket.
Meanwhile, Mzee showed up and watched everything for a while. Mzee, a name that Joy uses for him, literally means old man. He is Irene’s father-in-law and has been showing up periodically, watching while leaning on his staff or taking a nearby chair.
When the inlet and outlet plumbing was in place, the switch on the solar panels was thrown and a couple minutes later, the sound of water hitting the bottom of the tank could be clearly heard. A cheer went up from those nearby.
Willie and I installed the float switch, which will shut off the pump when the tank is full. Another thing to be installed at the top of the tank, but at least it didn’t involve anyone entering the tank. It was about a quarter full of water at this point. When I got the float switch connected into the inverter panel it didn’t work properly. I spent some time puzzling over this and have some ideas to try for tomorrow. Dave said they’ve had lots of issues with these float switches; maybe I can figure out what’s going on...
Over at Irene’s house, Irene’s 3 year old daughter, Naneu, was enjoying playing in the water coming out of the newly-installed tap. The water comes out of the ground very warm, probably close to 80 degrees.
There was more rain predicted for this afternoon. You can see the ominous could forming behind us. But, again, the rain held off and we were able to work a full day. The tank started filling at about 1:30pm and I had the pump shut off at around 4pm, so 3.5 hours of running filled the tank around half full. 5,000 liters of water, now available to this community, with more to come once we get the last little details ironed out.
This well site is only a few miles outside of Narok. But it takes us well over a half hour to get there. The road to the site, which is considered the main road for Kimelok, is so bad that going more than about five miles per hour will shake your vehicle and its occupants to pieces. Add in all the puddles from the recent rains and it makes for some interesting and challenging driving. There is a particularly big pothole just as you leave the paved road in Narok that is usually full of water. When we returned to Narok today, we discovered this hole had been repaired ... by filling it with boulders. You could very well lose some important piece off the bottom of the car if you drove over this.
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