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Bonjour,
WE HAVE WATER IN SAKUTEIK!!
After a couple of false starts we finally made it to Sakuteik early on Saturday morning. We left Narok at 6 am, earlier than we were expecting but the driver assured us that “the early bird catches the worm”. He was right, we arrived in time to see the drilling rig come to life as did the crowds who flocked to see this strange machine do its thang. The borehole is located on communal land and as it commenced on a Saturday the area was buzzing with the usual activities of football, volleyball and music as well as the curious people journeying to collect water with their jerry cans and donkeys from the contaminated holes at the bottom of the valley.
The drillers raced to 150m in the first day of drilling, due to the soft rocks, finding considerably more water than the survey had suggested. When the first aquifer was hit at about 30m the water gushed up and out of the hole and didn’t cease until the drilling stopped at 150m. An environmentally friendly foam was poured down the hole in order to clean the water as it came up.
This created a river of bubbles flowing over the water down the hill. The children were mesmerised by the melt in the hand texture and soon began wading and paddling through the flood of water.
The crowd was mostly made up of men and children, which was because the women’s duties are in the home and as a result were too busy to see the spectacle. The boys from the secondary school had loads of questions for us, not just about water but about the difference in cultures and environments of the UK and Kenya. Their English vocabulary was elaborate, and they came out with pharases such as, “Agriculture is the back bone of our nation”, and “I want to be the epitome of an example of Maasai culture for my village”.
We were staying at Agnes’s house, which was only a couple of kilometers from the drilling site. On our first night we cooked for ourselves and another 4 people. We were unaware of quite how strong Kenyan chillies are and added 2 to our pasta sauce resulting in mouths on fire and what is known as “tear gas”. We finally managed to get some sleep through
the howling of the dogs and the sub zero temperatures.
The second day the drillers put the casing into the borehole, the crowds were slow to build because everybody was at church. The final depth of the borehole was 148m as the bottom 2 metres had caved in.
The third and final day saw the completion of the borehole as the gravel packs were shoveled into the outside of the casing in order to filter the water. They also pumped air into the borehole forcing the water to spurt up 12m high and eventually came out clean allowing a few people (including Peter…) their first taste of the ground water.
We held a meeting to create a water committee which is made up of 8 men and 4 women from all areas of Sakuteik. It will be a registered community based organization (CBO) which will enable them to open a bank account to organize any water or maintenance funds. It will also be audited as a registered organization creating a transparent financial environment preventing any kind of corruption. The meeting was a great success and there are already plans for the community to continue the project themselves
by pumping the water to the secondary school and health centre. The attendees were extremely excited and grateful to everyone who contributed to Dig Deep and enabled the project to go ahead. They showed their appreciation to Dig Deep by presenting us with a very handsome goat! We have named it Billy Ngini and it is currently our ‘kid’ at the rescue centre. Ngini is Maasai for goat. We are loving it tenderly as we prepare for a feast to share with the girls… I fear I see a tear on the horizon.
We are now waiting for the 24 hour test pumping to determine the yield of the borehole and send the water to be tested in the lab. The community agreed that a wind pump would be the best option for their needs, so we hope to order it within the next two weeks, if it suits the yield. We have also started plans for a trough and tank to hold the water that needs to be erected before the wind pump is delivered.
Today we met with the councilor of Endonyo Narasha and the other charity involved so that we could clear up any miscommunication
that seems to have been created. We are going there tomorrow to attend a meeting with all the villagers so that we can present the option of a wind pump and they can make the final decision on what will benefit the community the most.
Bye for now, we are off for a lunch of rice and potatoes and then to cuddle Billy Ngini…
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David and wendy fitzsimmons
non-member comment
Congratulations!
How fantastic to see all your efforts coming to life! Really brilliant news. We're all so proud of you both and so happy for the community. How is that goat going to taste?!!