2.9

This past week we finished 2.9 of the six rainwater catchments we're building for the pilot.  The 0.9 is for Pauline's whose gutters and foundation are finished but we are waiting for the foundation to cure so we can place the tank and put in the finished plumbing.

(Note:  I've put some more pictures up of the finished catchment at Marabe's home.  I'll also be making an addition to my posting schedule.  Every WEDNESDAY I will be writing a cultural post about Kuria, Kenya.  Many of you have asked for a better picture of what life is like here for both me and the locals.  I'll do my best to give you an idea by describing foods, customs, and even some language lessons.  Thanks for your feedback, it helps me improve my blog!)

The week began at Marabe's home putting his tank on the cured foundation and finishing off the piping into the tank from the gutters.  We skipped putting the cement on the pipe joints because I wanted to see how the system would perform before making it too permanent.  In the afternoon we headed to John's where we were hoping to quickly put up his gutters.  It wasn't as quick as we had hoped.

We had the good fortune at Marabe's home that his whole compound sloped where we put the gutters.  Because of the slope, we didn't have to worry too much about the slope of the gutters relative to the roof, we just made sure the rain would fall in from the roof.  The roof we placed the catchment on for John's roof was another story.  His catchment roof was at the top of his compound and the roof was essentially level to the ground.  It's great for construction but terrible for catchments.

The process for placing gutters is first nailing up the fascia board, then checking the slope of the roof, placing gutter clips, and sliding in the gutters.  Our estimation of the slope showed us that we could achieve the desired slope but the placement of the gutter clips is a little difficult.  The clips are exactly examples of precision manufacturing so there is some variation in their shape.  The fascia boards also rest against tree limbs so some of them curve more towards the ground than others, changing the gutter position even if the gutter clips are in the proper place.  So with these factors all combined, we ended up putting up gutters that flowed backwards in some parts causing pretty big leaks.  After some thinking and reanalyzing, we decided to slope the gutters towards the middle instead of one side.  This gave us more room for a steeper slope from side to side.  It took quite a while to put in the gutter clips, find out we messed up, pull out the clips, and then put them back in for our new configuration.  But we got it done at the end of the day and the gutters work great!

On Tuesday we put in the foundation at John's home.  Originally the plan was for the leaders to put the foundation in themselves but they got cold feet and we had the fundi help us out again.  The process was a little slower than Marabe's because some of the material was missing but John was able to pick it up in time for us to finish.  We put up the drain box and the piping to divert the rain from the foundation so it wouldn't be damaged if it rained.

Lucas and I also took a trip up to Migori to pick up the 4" plugs we will be installing on the first flush pipes so that the leaders can unscrew the pipes after the rain is over to flush out the dirty water in the pipe.  We also ordered six more drain boxes made by the local fundi but they weren't yet ready.

Wednesday we moved on to Pauline's to place the gutters.  It was quite a challenge because her roof beams where we were nailing the fascia were not lined up down the entire length of the roof.  But, the roof was sloped similar to Marabe's so we lucked out on having an easier time placing the gutters.  The plan was to do the gutters in the morning and the foundation in the afternoon but after finishing the gutters it didn't look like we would have time to do the base as well.  Also, since the leaders were going to try the foundation themselves this time I didn't want to rush them.

Thursday the leaders took a big step in constructing the foundation themselves with the fundi supervising.  Pauline's foundation went pretty smoothly although it was pretty obvious it wasn't a fundi job.  It's ok, the team is still learning.  The fundi stepped in at the end because the leaders were having a little trouble with plastering where you trow cement on the outside verticle surfaces to finish it off in a coat of weather proof cement.  There was a sense of pride in the air after finishing the foundation.  The team was really pumped.

Friday we headed back to John's to finish off the John's catchment with his now cured foundation much in the same way we finished Marabe's on Monday.  Afterward we had a meeting getting everyone's opinions on the progress and discussing how we can improve as we go forward.  It was also the first time the leaders found out about the plan to have an open house once all of the catchments are complete.  We will be having the leaders invite their w+s representatives, about ten each, to their homes to see what the catchments look like.  It'll be a great chance to get the word out to the larger community about the catchments as well as giving the leaders the opportunity to lead.

All in all a good week with some "office" work getting done on Saturday at home.  2.9 catchments down, 3.1 to go.

twelve new pictures

Foreman

Construction has begun!  We've nearly finished the first of six rainwater catchments.  I've added a bunch of pictures of our two days of construction.

Our construction materials arrived on Monday from Migori, a semi-large town about 20 minutes north of Isibania.  All six of the 1000 L tanks plus the 3000 L tank for the Nuru house were crammed onto the bed of the lorry along with our 18 bags of cement, 100 2 m lengths of gutter, 7 20 ft pipes, and numerous gutter clips and pipe joints.  It was quite a sight to see!  The most absurd part was the drive from Isibania to Nymetaburo where we were storing the materials in the Nuru office at the dispensary (basically a health clinic).  The road from Migori to Isibania is a pretty decent paved road with the occasional pot hole.  Isibania to Nymetaburo is quite a different story, a single lane dirt road with tons of ruts and places where the road is washing away.  But, we made it!

The six team members were responsible to pick (Kenyan english for pickup) their tanks and three bags of cement each.  Some of the leader's homes are over 40 minutes away walking so it was quite a task but all of them got it done.  We could have hired a truck to drop off the materials but that would have been expensive and the trucks would have only been able to travel on the main roads, not directly to their homes.

Tuesday we did a lot of planning for the build and started to collect the final materials and tools as well as having our bi-weekly meeting with half of the w+s representatives in Sorrie Simba.  Lucas and I spent a few hours discussing the long term plans for our time together as well as setting up the meeting.  One of the key points we tried to get across in the meetings this week was having the w+s representatives train the children in their groups on proper sanitation techniques.  It's great that we've gotten the word out to adults about w+s but it is also immensely important to have children follow proper hygiene such as washing hands with soap and water and going to the bathroom in appropriate places, preferably latrines.

Wednesday morning was a little hectic with Lucas rolling in with tools in the morning.  There was a little miscommunication on Wednesday morning and some of the leaders went directly to Marabe's instead of the dispensary to pick the gutters, gutter clips, and other various things we needed for the project.  Thankfully, we had enough leaders to carry all the material down the long path to Marabe's in only one trip.  Lucas arrived shortly after with the tools and we surveyed the site and the materials.  Marabe and his family had done an excellent job of collecting sand, rocks, and water for the project.  Unfortunately, the rock pile Marabe had collected was right where we needed to place the tank.  We worked at a team to move all the rocks over about 6 ft to make way for the fancy new 1000 L tank.

In order to ensure that the tank was placed properly, the first thing that we worked on was the gutters.  By having the gutters in place we can more accurately place the tank near the end of the gutters.  We first measured the length of the roof and made sure we had enough fascia board and gutters to cover the length.    Then we went about hammering the fascia in place, then spacing gutter clips, finishing off with the gutters themselves.  The gutters had to be mated one inside of the other to prevent leaking so we had Christine and Pauline unbend one end of each gutter while they were still on the ground to better fit around the gutters in place.

The best part of the whole day was that I did very little.  Sure I showed Marabe, Lucas, John, Pauline, and Christine some tricks and how to keep things consistent.  But the majority of the work was done by them, exactly as it should be.  I am only going to be in Kuria, Kenya for six months, therefore it does nobody any good if I become an expert at rainwater catchment.  We need these six leaders and Lucas to take charges, as they did.  I was merely a foreman overseeing the operation and helping out when needed.

Thursday we completed the foundation that the tank will rest on inside of Marabe's compound.  By we I really mean the fundi (name for worker) completed the foundation.  Our team helped bring him the bricks and cement.  Because the gutters were already up, we simply placed the tank where we wanted it and traced it's outline to find where we wanted the foundation.  We dug down about 12 inches to provide a solid level surface to begin construction.  The  foundation consisted of two concentric circles of brick with and empty center.  The bricks were stacked six high with the last four layers above ground.  After finishing the last layer, we filled the center with big rocks and mud, capping it off with two layers of cement and bricks.  The entire structure was then coated in a final layer of weather resistant cement.  Because the bricks are made of sand, soil, and dung, they don't hold up well to weather if they are directly exposed to it.  The outer coating will lengthen the life of the foundation greatly.

The final task on Thursday was to whip up a piping scheme to keep the water falling out of the gutter from ruining the foundation as it cures.  It was one of my proudest moments in jerry rigging.  I'll have to take a picture of it, words just can't describe it.

Friday we met as a group at the dispensary and debriefed on the whole construction process.  The team came up with some excellent suggestions for how to proceed with the next five homes.  We also set up the schedule for the remaining homes and planned the next two weeks of construction.  I wanted to build alternating between women and men but John happens to live the closest to Marabe so our order is Marabe, John, Pauline, Christine, Maurice, and Elizabeth.  Everyone was really excited at the meeting.

Our original plan was to hire the fundi for the first two homes until we learned how to do the foundation ourselves.  All of the leaders knew this so they were watching the fundi intensely as he built Marabe's foundation.  At the meeting I was discussing how I thought the fundi had done a good job and was considering hiring him for at least the next foundation.  The meetings are run by Lucas in Kiswahili with occasional explanations to me in English after a discussion.  Following my suggestion about the fundi, there was 15 minutes of discussion between the entire team that was pretty intense.  At the end of the discussion, Lucas turned to me and said, "Chris, we want to build the next foundation ourselves."  Something inside of me skipped.  I was taken aback by the team's confidence and desire to build their own foundation.  I was incredibly proud of the ownership they were taking of the project from the hard work they were putting in to now wanting to build their own foundations.  

We discussed the idea a little bit and John said they only needed to know how close to put the bricks which they had watched carefully on Thursday, learning from the fundi.  The team also had such a desire because they know the long term plan is to roll the catchments out the community if we decide they are worth the expense.  The team wants to be prepared to help their neighbors.  This attitude is exactly why we selected these six, an innate leadership and desire to help the community.

So far one of my three big projects is off to a great start!  I look forward to putting the finishing touches on Marabe's rainwater catchment on Monday and starting John's, Pauline's, and Christine's next week!

nine new pictures

Rainwater catchment

The transition of the water and sanitation (w+s) manager roll from Nicole to myself is almost complete.  This week I'm taking control of all the programs and Nicole is just going to be hanging around incase anything pops up.

The biggest project we are handing off is the rainwater catchment pilot project.  A rainwater catchment is a system of gutters and drainpipes connected to a collecting tank.  Rainwater is one of the cleanest water sources available and can reduce or eliminate the need for family members to collect water from springs and rivers many miles away.  If the system is properly maintained with roof and gutter cleanings, the homeowners may not have to boil the water to make it potable, saving the cost of firewood and the time required to heat the water.  Rainwater catchment is a very attractive solution to the lack of clean water available in Kuria, Kenya but there are many issues we have to resolve to ensure the usability of the system.  I'll run through our concerns and then describe our system.

The largest factor in the success of a rainwater catchment system is, as you probably guessed, rainwater.  Kuria, Kenya suffers from one long drought period from June to August as well as a few other dry months, February, November, and December.  These dry periods of very little and sporadic rain are a real challenge for designing rainwater catchment systems.  Buying or building tanks with large enough storage to make it through these droughts is cost prohibitive so sizing tanks becomes a game of balancing cost with usability.  If we spend too little and get a tank to small, the system may only be useful for 30% of the year, only on days that it rains making the system virtually useless.  If we spend too much and get a large tank, the farmers will not be able to afford buying the materials in the first place.  Unfortunately, we have very little information on rainfall patterns, we only have 24 months of total monthly rainfall data which doesn't give us the daily rainfall picture we need to make proper judgements.

The second factor is operation and maintenance.  The rainwater catchment itself is pretty simple but it requires quite a bit of effort from the homeowner to work properly.  If the homeowner neglects the system, the gutters and downspouts will get clogged, gutters will leak, and dirty water will make it into the tank.  Contamination can also come in the form of runoff from the homeowners courtyards as the courtyards are generally filled with animal excrement from corralling the animals at night for protection. Developing a rainwater catchment system with minimal maintenance and training the homeowners on how to perform the maintenance are two important things we must do to provide a sustainable solution.

Cost is the final factor for design.  We must reach a cost point that allows farmers to pay for the entire system without subsidies from Nuru.  Initially, Nuru will cover the full cost for the six w+s leaders and the 42 w+s representatives so that their systems can be models their neighbors can learn from.  When the program is rolled out to the larger community, Nuru may cost share the materials but we will eventually place the full cost of the system on the farmer.  By designing a system that the farmers can afford we will encourage the organic growth of the rainwater catchment adoption.  

Organic growth is a top priority at Nuru.  We will be leaving Kuria, Kenya within 5 years of arriving in September 2008 so if our programs are not designed to continue without our presence, they will fail.  We are here to give Kuria, Kenya a jump start and not fall in to the trap of dependance that has plagued other NGO's.  That is a big reason for community empowerment and why my Kenyan w+s counterpart Lucas has a much more important role in the community than I do.  I'm more of a behind the scenes advisor handling the technicalities and filling in where Lucas needs help.  One of those technicalities is the rainwater catchment system design.

I have been working with Nicole for the better part of two months hammering down a rainwater catchment design for Kuria, Kenya based on the typical local compound and material availability.

Our final design for the pilot consists of a 1000 L tank placed on top of a brick foundation with iron gutters flowing into a drain box which then flows into a first flush device and then the tank.  Most of the design is straightforward and easily understandable, all except the first flush device.  A first flush system is a device that collects the initial 1-2 mm of rainfall on the roof and diverts it from the main storage tank.  Maybe you're thinking why we would waste such a precious resource but if your consider the contaminate build up on the roofs and in the gutters between rainfall you would realize the need for a first flush device.  The initial rainfall collects all of the dirt, dust, and debris from the roof and gutters and is highly contaminated with everything from bugs to bird droppings.  By diverting it from the main storage tank we ensure the quality of the rainfall collected.  Amazingly, studies have been performed showing that this initial rainfall is the only portion of the water collected that is contaminated so once this rainfall is diverted, the remaining rainfall is almost perfectly clean.

Our first flush device is part of the drainage system from the gutters to the tank.  The gutters flow into a box we call the drain box that has a metal screen on the bottom to catch large debris from the roof.  This box connects to a PVC pipe that flows into the main storage tank.  Before the PVC pipe flows into the tank a T elbow splits the flow into our first flush device.  The PVC pipe flows roughly horizontal from the drain box and our T elbow sits just in front of the tank with the leg of the T facing down towards the ground.  To this, we attach another length of PVC pipe and cap the end which provides a known volume.  In order for rainfall to make it into the large storage tank, this length of PVC pipe will have to be full so that the rainfall will no longer flow down the leg of the T and will instead flow out of the other side of the cross of the T and into the main storage tank.  The known volume in the PVC pipe at the leg of the T will be calculated to capture the first 1-2 mm of rainfall and hence all of the contamination.  At the end of the rainfall, the homeowner will unscrew the cap of the first flush device and drain out all of the dirty water so that the system can function properly for the next rainfall.  This type of first flush device has been used widely in Thailand with great success and was featured in one of our design resources, Rainwater Catchment Systems for Domestic Supply: Design, Construction and Implementation by Erik Nissen-Petersen and John Gould.

The rest of the design is fairly simple, just gutters into a box and a big tank with a brass tap.  These first six rainwater catchments we will be installing are part of our pilot program to check if rainwater catchment systems are the way to go to provide safe drinking water for the community.  We will be testing out all of our concerns and collecting all sorts of data including highly accurate daily rainfall data from a USGS rain gauge so that we can correlate tank volumes with rainfall data.  Best case we find our system works well and it is usable for the majority of the year.  Worst case we find out that rainwater catchments are too expensive for the use they provide.  The middle of the road and most likely case is that we will have to improve our system but have found that in general it is very useful to the homeowners.

This week we will be getting the materials we purchased last week and will begin construction of our first rainwater catchment system on the home of one of our leaders, Marabe.  The six leaders will come to assist with construction and help us adjust the system as we are installing it.  We will then move on to the next five homes and hopefully finish all six within three weeks. There will then be a long period of data collection so that we can evaluate the systems.  After crunching our data and redesigning we will implement our new and improved design on the original 42 w+s representatives plus about 50 new representatives from a second recruitment drive.  We are shooting for early 2010.

After we have 100+ examples in the community we will move to the more organic phase of the program where farmers will take out loans to install the rainwater catchments on their homes, paying them back after harvests.  We have established a Community Development Committee (CDC) in Kuria, Kenya that will continue all Nuru programs upon our departure.  Lucas, my w+s counterpart is one of the members of the CDC and is moving toward the independence and responsibility that will be required of him when Nuru moves out of Kuria, Kenya in just over four years.  We have been working on other revenue generating programs for the CDC such as the farm loans in order to ensure it's sustainability without western funding.  Nuru will maintain a connection with the CDC in Kuria, Kenya but we will only be checking in.  When we leave, Nuru is the community.

As a final thought I would just like to bring up one of the largest reasons we are so concerned with bringing clean water to the families of our community.  The vast majority of people collecting water for families are school age girls.  Their water collection duties are difficult and in some cases make going to school regularly impossible.  This is especially true when they have to hike and queue for hours during droughts because most of the nearby springs dry up forcing the community to migrate to the deeper springs.  Obviously this cripples the education of these young woman and thereby their empowerment.

Kuria, Kenya is a patriarchal community but many powerful women are becoming leaders in the community.  It has been shown that the number one most important factor to making communities grow and bringing them out of poverty is the empowerment of women.  It is an issue we as westerners cannot take on head first because we will be looked upon as forcing western ideas on people we don't fully understand.  But, we can give girls and young women every opportunity to empower themselves with programs such as the rainwater catchment that eliminates the need for them to work hours everyday just to provide clean water for their families.

Even from my personal experience of being surrounded by strong women, my mother especially, I know how much of an impact they can have on a family and community.  Women have a way of fighting tooth and nail for their children so that even if they are dealt a raw hand, they can still prosper.  Empowered women fighting on behalf of their children and community are a force of nature to be reckoned with.

twenty-two new pictures

Issue

This week revolved around issuing top dressing to farmers.  Top dressing is fertilizer you place on your crops after they have been growing for a while to strengthen them and increase yield.  We issued just shy of 600 bags of top dressing, each bag covering one acre of maize!

(Note: I've put a picture link and link to Nuru on the right hand side.  Just click on the picture to get to more.  I'll be adding pictures occasionally to the folder so keep an eye out for new ones if you want a visual on my work in Kenya!)

The week started off pretty strong with a lot of concentration on the turn over between the water and sanitation (w+s) manager from the previous team and myself.  We spent most of Monday going over the long term plans of the two main projects Nicole is handing over to me, rain water catchment systems and the four deep wells we are hoping to drill.  It was a pretty intense meeting but thankfully we still have two weeks to hash out the details so we should make it.  I also haven't forgotten that I still need to write about how the rain water catchment system works, I'm hoping by next week.

Personally this week was a little rough.  Late last week, I came down with some sort of sickness that tore me up.  We have some pretty intense antibiotics to handle really bad stuff we may encounter.  It's call cipro (Ciprofloxacin) and as my teammate Aerie describes it, it's an atomic bomb for your body, it'll take out anything.  Thankfully, I was able to pull a JFK and avoid taking the cipro because my body fought off the bugs by Wednesday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had a chance to meet the 48 w+s representatives.  The w+s representatives are members of larger groups, from about 5 to 10, that participate in specific training for w+s.  They report back to their larger groups and teach them what they have learned at their training in order to more organically spread knowledge.  It's a much more effective way to pass on information than having wazungu (white man, aka anyone not from Africa) stand up an preach to a large group.  The w+s representatives were a little confused at first and were talking amongst themselves trying to figure out who I was.  Lucas, the Kenyan leg to our tripod, thought it was best to let them discuss and only introduce me a half an hour later.  When Nicole asked about introducing me right away, he said, "Ahhhhh, no," a typical Lucas phrase, this time accompanied by a sly smile.  Lucas's planned worked out well.  People had pretty much every conceivable idea thought out except my real role.  They weren't aware that Nicole was leaving near the end of March but they understood it completely that we were basically tag teaming the project.

Thursday and Friday were basically manual labour days.  We spent the entirety of both days doling out top dressing to the farmers.   Jake and I, the brutes that we are, worked to move bags around depending on how many acres farmers were planting.  Each bag was 50 kg (110 lbs) so it was good to have four hands on a bag.  Janine, Healthcare Progam Manager for the first team, and her Kenyan counterpart, Nelly, checked in the farmers and told us how many acres each farmer needed bags for, one bag per acre.  We were a well oiled machine.  Well actually, not at all.  A lot of farmers forgot their receipts the first day so we had to double check their identities and re-write receipts.  The farmers on the first day didn't really know what time to come either so we had a little trouble with having to wait excessively long for farmers to pick up their top seed.  The second day was a little better because we were able to get the word out better through James and Andrew, the two Kenyans heading up the agriculture program with Jake.

Friday was quite a successful day for the w+s program.  Nicole had been waiting for months to meet with the district office of the water ministry of Kenya.  A district is about the size of a county in the US.  On Friday morning, we were able to finally get a meeting with the district manager and his deputy.  Nicole had been under the weather but was able to muster the strength to take the 35 minute ride to Kehancha in a matatu to meet with the ministry.   A matatu is basically a taxi that gets over packed with people traveling from city to city.  We sat 5 across the front, four in the middle, and two in the trunk, all slammed in a Toyota Corolla station wagon, a stick shift no less.  Being packed like sardines was well worth it though because we had a great talk with the ministry and it sounds like there may be some opportunities to work corroboratively together.  It is always nice to work through an existing government entity but sometimes we need to be careful to not step on toes.

So basically this week I got sick, met a bunch of Nuru members, worked out for two days straight, and then met the president of Kenya disguised as the head of the district's water ministry.  Who knows what next week will bring?

seven new pictures