Mali Water Pump Project

Today we worked in the village on smaller side projects while the surveyor surveyed the new site. We assembled seesaw hardware and supports and poured the cement to anchor them in the ground. We also painted the seesaw board red, and we will attach it to the supports tomorrow. Soon the children will have a new toy to play with!

We also installed pulley systems on the existing rainwater wells in the village. Before the pulleys, the women in the village pulled water buckets almsot 100 ft. straight up, and it was very difficult. We learned more about how difficult communication here can be when the Malians disassembled our two-pulley system and replaced it with a less effective one-pulley system because "simpler is better".

After we finished working on our side projects, we talked to the surveyor who seemed to find more promising results than at the last site. To survey, he measures the resistance of the soil in an area, and the lower the resistance of the soil, the better chance there is that water is present at the site. At the previous site, the lowest resistance he found was 900 Ohms/meter, and at the new site, the lowest resistance is 200 Ohms/meter.

They have a saying here - "West Africa Wins Again"; it's kind of like their Murphy's Law. While we have experienced many obstacles to completing the water pump project, today's obstacle might be the most bizzare yet. We have been waiting for several days for the wire transfer to the drilling company's account to show up here. Today, we found out why it's not here yet--OPEC flagged the transfer because they thought we were drilling for oil instead of water! As a result, the drilling company (which was supposed to have begun drilling the second hole early Thursday morning) will not begin the new drilling until 2pm on Thursday. They will finish on Friday morning. The pipes will be lowered later that day, and the pump will be assembled sometime after that. The team, except for Natalie, will leave to go home by Friday night. It is disappointing that after so much work the team will not be able to see the pump deliver water for the village, but hopefully the village will benefit greatly from the system--and Jean-Pierre will email us pictures! What can we do?--West Africa wins again.

Tonight, Jason and Dr. Carter went to our translator's house to watch the Champion's League Championship football (soccer) game. Barcelona won, and the girls could hear everyone running through the streets cheering after the game.