Options...

Alright, I knew going into this whole project that it might be the hardest thing I do as an undergrad. It is. I mentioned last time that we planned to have daily meetings with the water board. Well, of course, they didn’t show up today. In truth, these kinds of delays are to be expected. We ran into Eddy later this evening and he mentioned that every day was just hard. He said most people were busy but he also realized we were here for a short time and suggested meetings on Wednesday and Friday, which we agreed to. I’ll come back to this discussion after I describe the rest of our day.

We spent the morning really hashing out the rainwater system options that we have. We went through brick, plastic metal, pits, above ground mud, bamboo, rammed earth, stabilized soil, interlocking soil stabilized bricks (ISSB), hybrid brick/underground pit, large cisterns and ferrocement. Yeah, we were busy! We came up with a set of categories to evaluate each system option: technical aspects, community ownership models, financing options, and straight-up pricing. I had pulled a ton of case studies and research articles on the various tank types before coming and set everyone to reading for an hour or so. We quickly eliminated ISSB-the cost of the press doesn’t really offset the saved cost of less cement; also this community just isn’t ready to own such an expensive piece of equipment. We eliminated soil stabilized because most of the work done with it is experimental. Large/centralized cisterns were eliminated because we’re pretty sure a large community infrastructure will not work. Our last discussion with the water board revealed that they were concerned about price-as to be expected. We suspect they still don’t fully grasp the notion of a fully community owned rainwater model, thus we need to present a strong story of why we’re here. I can see why this is confusing to them because as EWB we’ve changed our attitude so to speak in working here several times. We don’t want a system that has a lot of reliance on our subsidy because well that’s not (as much as this word is overused) sustainable. That also makes future projects difficult. I know our original plan was to build 10 systems in August and somehow split the costs of those. This could work but we don’t think that too much reliance should be on our subsidy then too. It would be good if the August trip could be chance to see these community models in action. Based on this, we decided to really present ourselves as technical experts. Our main contribution will be ensuring the tanks and system are durable (something they were concerned about), providing them with starting capital, and any connections for setting up financial or business models. Now, we realize that it seems crazy that we are not willing to fund anything. We will ensure people are trained in the construction and maintenance and have the necessary connections to make it all happen. That’s not entirely true..we just don’t want our financial contribution to be the center of the discussion right now. In fact, if we can devise a system that is independent of external donors in the long run, that would be groundbreaking for the field of household rainwater, where most projects are simply too expensive. OK cool. However, the issue with presenting the community with all these cost cutting options is they will think EWB is backing out of its partnership with the community. Ddegeya needs to see the value in cost cutting-they need to see incentives as well. The biggest incentive of course is a model which they can replicate for years to come. Will they find this incentive as attractive as we do…who knows. The other options are using a sort of business model (similar to our Showergy options), increased time (filling water at boreholes takes foorreva), and possibly targeting women (using their technical expertise in tanks based on weaving).

OK, back to tank designs. The three of us are favoring mud pits, some sort of reinforced above ground mud, a pit in a hill, and bamboo. We went back through the pricing options and the expenses from last year’s system. The most expensive component last year was labor, ringing in at 552,800-nearly 1/3 of the cost. Cement is a common huge expense as is transportation of materials (ringing in at 268,000 last year). If we can eliminate these big expenses, then we can bring this into the range of something the community can afford. Cement could be eliminated through using other reinforcing mechanisms-metal bars around bricks, an earth pit, and a bamboo weave. Essentially, breakdown cement into its component functions and see how we can replace those. The other option is if EWB paid for core rainwater materials to be transported and stored in Ddegeya, where someone can be in charge of selling them locally. The bamboo weave is tricky-turns out basket weaving is not such a useless class after all. Weaving is something the women already do, thus tapping into their skills as opposed to traditional male dominated construction skills. Obviously all of these options have to be rigorously tested back home, but if we can get the community thinking along these lines, I think we’ll be in good shape for this trip. Oh, we found out metal tanks corrode quickly-so out of the picture. So some sort of reinforced mud pits can be good with wood treated to protect it from termites (with engine oil, yum). Most importantly, we want them to devise a community contribution model for a low-cost system-which is dependent on testing. We want have a sort of go/no-go checklist for the remaining options to discuss with the community and board.

In terms of financing options: A savings fund, where households or groups contribute x amount each month to accumulate for a tank. This can also be adapted into a rotating community fund. Microfinance as an option for tanks designed in a business model (or for sale, as may be the case for woven tanks). Various subsidy options-maybe a temporary subsidy to cover the cost of initial risks.

Just because we’re not meeting with the board tomorrow, doesn’t mean we won’t be busy! We will probably more rigorously figure out pricing, with a potential trip to Masaka. Also, Elliot fixed a whopping 6 boreholes!!! (paid a borehole technician $400 to do it in 6 weeks). With these new sources available, traffic to Nalongo (the main well) has significantly decreased. Nalongo’s quality has also deteriorated. We checked out one of the bores today, the line was pretty long. Turns out the area around St. Gertrude’s and Eddy’s house has the least access to water and may be a good site for RWH. We plan on doing some update water source mapping tomorrow and household density mapping to determine the target areas needed water access. We then want to meet with those households in those areas.

I’ll end on a slightly less technical and boring note. While at the trading center this morning, someone pick pocketed Daphne’s phone. She realized it was missing and went back. Turns out other people had seen the guy (someone they knew apparently) pick pocketing her phone, chased him down, and got the phone back. Lucky day!