Summer 2018 Kenya Trip
The Princeton Engineers Without Borders Kenya team has completed another successful implementation trip! This year, four members of our team – Kal Shaw, Melissa Yuan, Clare Cook, and Matthew Yun—along with our technical mentor Larry Martin travelled to the Kuria West District of southwest Kenya to implement two borehole wells at Kubweye Primary School and Kiburanga Primary School. We are happy to report that both locations now have a consistent source of clean drinking water, which should sustain them year round through rainy and dry seasons.
The team celebrates with students and faculty after drilling is completed at Kiburanga Primary School.
Monitoring & Evaluation
The first week of our trip was dedicated to monitoring the past projects our team has completed in the area. Princeton Engineers Without Borders has been working in the Kuria West District since 2013 when Princeton Swahili Professor Mahiri Mwita contacted our club about beginning a partnership with his hometown. Since then, the team has implemented three projects: the 2014 and 2015 rainwater catchment systems at Muchebe Primary School and the nearby Muchebe warehouse, and the 2016 rainwater catchment system at Komosoko Primary School. While visiting these schools and communities this year, we were pleased to find that several years post-implementation, the systems are all still fully functional and being cared for well. We enjoyed meeting with the water committees responsible for the care and maintenance of the systems, and conducting house-to-house surveys with our wonderful translators to better understand the impact the systems have on the surrounding communities.
Matthew checks the tanks at Muchebe Primary School.
Overall, people are very happy with the state of the water tanks, and have had no problems with disease from drinking the tank water, which is significant since the communities have previously struggled with Typhoid outbreaks. There are some ongoing water access problems in both communities: the rainwater catchment tanks tend to run dry partway into the dry season, partially due to some community members taking more water than is needed strictly for drinking. Thankfully, since there are separate tanks dedicated to the schools and communities, there is at least sufficient water to sustain the students and faculty for the entirety of the school year. Our team will be investigating how we can best meet the remaining water needs of the area.
The team enjoys tea with Muchebe Primary School headteacher, Ms. Susan.
Implementation
After one week in country, Sparr Drilling Limited—the company we contracted with to perform the drilling—was ready to start, and we began implementation of the first borehole at Kubweye Primary School. Kubweye Primary School is established as one of the strongest primary schools in the area, and attracts students from as far as Nairobi. They had recently introduced a boarding option to house more students, bringing the total up to about 900. However, with no source of clean water nearby, students would haul water from home (generally collected from rivers or seasonal wells) and often leave in the middle of the school day to collect more water from the river. In addition, community members explained that the area as a whole was in need of a new water source, as most people collected water from a single well, which would get very low in the dry season, leading to long lines and forcing some families to get their drinking water from the river.
Drilling at Kubweye Primary School.
Partway through the drilling, we were worried the hole would come up dry. When the drillers surpassed the 130 meter mark suggested by the hydrogeological survey performed in 2016 as the bottom of the main underground aquifer, there was still only dust coming out of the hole. We decided to keep drilling with the hope of hitting something, and by the time we reached 159 meters, we found water! The next day, pumping tests with a temporary electric pump revealed that the borehole could sustain a water output of up to 5 m^3/hour (5000 liters/hour). This is far more than can be supplied by a hand-pump, even with continuous pumping, and opens up the possibility for eventually installing an electric pump and adding distribution lines. When we met with the school management board to elect a water committee to oversee the operation and maintenance of the borehole, they had the idea to eventually add distribution lines not only to give school buildings and community members easy access to the water, but also to pump water to sell at a twice-weekly cattle market held next to the school. This would allow the management to raise all the maintenance funds needed for the pump and borehole without charging the community members or students. Thus, we were all very excited to find that the well can provide enough water to make this project doable, and our team will consider partnering with the school to make it a reality.
Pump installed at Kubweye Primary School.
Once drilling was complete at Kubweye Primary School, our team and the drillers relocated to Kiburanga Primary School to begin our second project. Kiburanga Primary School has about 500 students, and just like Kubweye, has no easy access to clean water. Most families and students travel to a nearby stream to get drinking water, and report facing long lines and Typhoid outbreaks.
Form 7 students at Kiburanga Primary School.
Shortly after beginning drilling at Kiburanga, we found ourselves in the same situation as at Kubweye: we had passed the estimated depth for reaching water, and had found next to nothing. The team opted to keep drilling, but progress was halted again about 10 meters later when the steel end of the drill bit broke off in the hole and could not be retrieved, making it impossible to keep going. We had reached some amount of water by this point, but we left for the night unsure if it would even be worth installing a pump at this site. Thankfully, by the next morning, the water level in the well had risen to 68 meters below the surface, which is safely within the 80-90 meter depth limit of the pump we planned to install. A water recovery test revealed that the pump could supply water at a rate of about 200 liters/hour. This is nearly as fast as a the hand pump can supply from a depth of 60 to 70 meters, and can sufficiently meet the drinking needs of not only the students and faculty, but also the surrounding community.
Completed hand pump at Kiburanga Primary School.
Assessment
During the trip, the team also found time to assess for potential future projects. First, we are considering partnering with the county government to expand distribution from existing water treatment plants. The team met with several officials from the Migori County Water & Sanitation Office, as well as with the local assemblywoman, and we are all very excited at the prospect of partnering together to improve access to clean water in the area. The other main possibility is installing an electric pump in the borehole we drilled at Kubweye Primary School this year, and adding in distribution lines as explained earlier. We plan to explore solar technology options in the coming weeks and months, and determine how we can best use our time and resources to get water to as many people as possible.
The team visits a water treatment plant at the Gatundu River.
Community Building & Education
In addition to the design and implementation of new infrastructure, our team is focused on sustainability and maintaining positive community relationships. We try to ensure all projects are initiated by the community, and that full ownership of the project and responsibility for operation and maintenance passes to the community upon our departure. On this trip, we aimed to accomplish these goals through sharing meals with community and school leaders, performing surveys in all the communities we worked in, training elected water committee members in the proper maintenance of the borehole wells, interacting with students, and holding community meetings. We are very grateful for all the friendships we formed this summer, and we are confident the boreholes will be well cared for and maintained by the water committee and other community members to serve the schools for years to come.
Melissa talks to a group of students at Kiburanga Primary School.
Dance break!
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all of you for your continued support of our team! Special thanks to our technical mentor Larry Martin for giving his time and expertise to making these projects possible throughout the year and especially during our trip, Vivian Yu for her leadership and logistical support from the U.S., Professor Mahiri Mwita for his support both before and during our trip, David Mariba for translating and arranging many key meetings with community leaders and government officials, Frida Mwita for translating and being generally wonderful, head teachers and faculty Peter Montongori, Christine Boke, Susan Paul, Josephine Robi, Wilfred and Tom for their hospitality and dedication to the implementation and long-term maintenance of these projects, Joseph for his friendship and for driving us everywhere, the teachers and students at Kiburanga and Kubweye Primary School for their enthusiasm and toleration of some very loud drilling during school hours, the school management boards and water committees for their flexibility and willingness to volunteer their time to care for the projects, our entire Engineers Without Borders team who spent their Sunday afternoons all school year to prepare for this trip, and countless other people who gave their money, time, and effort to support our trip this year.
Thank you!