New Ideas and Possibilities

Every morning, we wake up, have some tea or coffee, discuss our plans and then get down to work. Sometimes the work is purchasing materials, building prototypes, or digging holes for tanks. Today, much of our work resembled playing in the mud. And by mud, I mean clay, harvested from the valley. While here, we are prototyping rain water catchment tank options. One option is ferrocement-- a layer of cement, then chicken wire, then cement. Another option is a compacted clay tank. Originally, we were all skeptical of the compacted clay; it was essentially a large, tank shaped hole. We decided to take the tank a bit further. The compacted "clay" mentioned before is really the soil in which we dug the hole which has clay components. However, the valley is full of pretty fine clay. We walked into the valley to find the clay and found plenty of exposed deposits, but it was baked hard in the sun and we could not think how to harvest it. But on our beautiful walk back to the clinic through the valley we came upon a clay brick maker. In front of him was a pit and harvested clay. We spoke to him and asked if we could purchase some clay. Initially he was reluctant, saying that the clay was for bricks and that just clay had never been sold before. We convinced him that we would love to buy some clay and he agreed. Some members of our travel team returned today to collect and transport the clay. The amount of clay that we gussed we would need for our prototype tank (1 m in diameter and .75 m deep) for 5000 UGX (less than two US dollars) plus the small amount we paid a village boy to load the clay onto his bike and help us get it to the prototype site.

While part of our team was pushing the bike and clay up the hill, three of us were in Masaka once again puchasing PVC and various components for the pump and printing out water education brochures (plus a mandatory chocolate purchase). The ride back to Ddegeya was an experience. 10 people were stuffed into a small sedan with our 7 ft lengths of PVC sticking out of the trunk, dubiously tied down.

Once everyone was reunited, we started coating the walls of the tank in the finer clay from the valley. Steven would like to mention the scrapes and cuts he incurred while trying to collect water from the borehole. Of course, once his scrapes were cleaned and bandaged, he insisted that we start digging another hole or mixing concrete immeadiately; of course, with his hands all bandaged, he would not be able to hold a shovel, but would provide moral support and supervision. The rest of us declined and continued our original work. Our methodology for coating the hole with clay was amusing; local children and adults alike seemed to be entertained by our antics. John came down and laughed and said he hadn´t played in the mud since he was little, but went on to provide new ideas for the tank. We sprinkled the clay walls with cement dust, drizzled a little more water on it. A mason working on a house next door showed us the method. Apparently, it´s how masons and contractors finish floors. We think we´ll make the base of the tank concrete, for added strength when people jump in to clean it.

This tank is potentially very exciting. If this tank holds water well enough, it has great potential to be an affordable and accessable for many people in the area. It´s a tank that anyone can build and is very cheap. Of course, we haven´t filled it with water yet to test it. Another potential obstacle is the cultural view of clay. People that we´ve talked to have been skeptical of the cleanliness and effectiveness of a clay tank, though we are trying to explain it as a pot holding water in the ground. Once we see how well it works we can invest more thought into this project.

This weekend will be dedicated to continued work on prototypes-- building the pump, continued work on the ferrocement tank, building the concrete base for the clay tank, trying the first flush system with a pipe instead of a jug, and collecting agricultural waste to burn for charcoal creation.

One of the perks of being an engineer is playing in the mud (or the circuitry or the chemistry) to create something tangible-- something that helps others.