After chapel, Jon, Bob and I went to the new water tower in the back. The top of the tower platform on which the tank sits is about 25 off the ground. The output water line from the water tank had a joint about 8 feet off the ground that was leaking a bit. The bottom of the water line had an elbow and about a meter of piping terminating at a gate valve. This section of piping was angled off in a different trench than the trench that had been dug for the piping to connect to the 5-in-1 units. So we disconnected this whole L-shaped section of pipe about 14 feet off the ground at a valve junction. Then we took apart the leaky joint and re-attached it with thread tape, connected the PVC to the steel pipe, re-oriented the L-shaped section into the right trench, and then re-attached the whole section to the output water line. We laid the 150 feet of piping into the trench that had been dug. We opened the valve to check for leaks and everything looked good.
The next step was to locate the buried water line carrying water from the water tower in the front of the hospital to the 5-in-1's so we could splice into it. Since Bob and I could work on that with the help of Dennis and Elisha (the electrician), we agreed Jon should go to Livingstone with one of the other hospital staff to inquire about the reducer couplings so we’d be sure to get exactly what we needed to join the 60 mm current pipe to the 50 mm pipe we were installing. He left about mid-morning.
The documentation onsite regarding where things are is pretty scant. Most of the information about the location of buried infrastructure components resides in Dennis’ memory. He was having a lot of trouble remembering exactly where the buried water line was and how deeply it was buried.. Using a broad-headed pick and a short shovel with shovel blade worn to half its original length and worn into the shape of an inverted crescent moon (the same shoveled I’d tried to use back in 2008), we dug numerous holes, each in places where Dennis thought the pipe should be or where it looked like there had previously been a trench. We kept striking out.
In addition to the two sets of 5-in-1's, there are two other houses that receive their water via this water line. Janet Sisco had lived in one. We wanted to make certain that when we spliced into the line these houses would still receive water. When I asked Dennis where the water lines from these houses go and where they connect to the main line, he showed us the approximate route. We tried digging at a couple of spots where the path Dennis remembered passed through a shrub hedge and coincided with a small gap in the shrubs. We thought if we could find this line and follow it, it would eventually lead us to the main line. Our initial attempts were unsuccessful. Then one of the young men who had helped to dig the trench for that particular water line came by to help us locate it. He tried several different spots where he thought it had to been but was unsuccessful. Then a couple more young men came by to offer their opinions where we should dig. Finally, with the help of the first of these young men we found the pipe coming from one of the houses.
Given the direction it seemed to be heading, we dug another hole about 15 feet closer to where we thought the main line should go. We found the line from the house again and it was still heading in the same direction. Digging a little farther, we found where it joins the main line. At this location, the main line was heading in a direction parallel to the direction of the new line we wanted to splice into it. That meant we had to follow the main line back along its path to where it intersected the trench that had been dug for the new water line – there we could join the two. It took about five more holes to follow the water line, locate when and how sharply it turned, and where it went under the trench, but finally, after about four hours and numerous holes, we found the point at which the two water lines could intersect.
Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent digging a pit around this intersection so we would have space to install the T-junction and the various valves and couplings needed. Not knowing exactly how big this space needed to be and being a bit worn out, we didn’t really make it quite as big as needed but it was a good start. We all congratulated each other (Bob, Dennis, Elisha and me) and then thanked the young man who had been so helpful in locating the water line from the house. We returned to the mission house at the end of a pretty tiring day feeling like we’d made clear progress.
Shortly after we got back to the mission house, Jon returned from Livingstone. Mr. Shaw had given him reducer couplings for connecting 50 mm lines to 63 mm lines. He had insisted there is no such thing as 60 mm pipe. A bit incredulous, Jon checked with another hardware and was told the same thing. Since there are a limited number of standard sizes of materials and figuring that either his own measurements or Dennis’ information must have been wrong, he purchased the reducers and returned to Zimba. The trip took nearly all day of course because the driver had other errands, including picking up a large number of bags of cement for the cement veneer on the inside and outside walls of the new Outpatient Building. They had to wait for a semi to get on-loaded for their order to get filled and loaded onto the hospital truck.
When he arrived back in Zimba, Jon had gone to the site of the pipe junction and then to the maintenance shed to try out the new reducer couplings on a sample of the ‘60 mm’ pipe Mr. Shaw said didn’t exist. When he walked into the mission compound, he was clearly frustrated and exasperated. The pipe really was 60 mm. The coupling really was designed for 63 mm. And the compression coupling couldn’t tighten up enough to hold the pipe securely. He was sure it wouldn’t work and he had just wasted time and money.
I tried to encourage him. I tried to reassure him that this just isn’t an off-the-shelf kind of place to live, that this was probably his McGyver moment (note: McGyver was a TV character who was continually finding himself in dire circumstances and would, using his considerable knowledge of chemistry, physics, and engineering, and his ingenuity, improvise tools or processes to extricate himself from his bad situation and save the day. Bud and I frequently talked about McGyver and ‘McGyvering’ solutions to problems on our last trip to Zimba). This would be our turn. I suggested that since it is a compression coupling, perhaps we could add a band of innertube or electric tape around the pipe end to enlarge its circumference enough that the coupling would tighten down and hold the pipe in place. Jon thought this might work but that the seal would be better if we clued the innertube to the pipe like a bicycle patch. We talked to Million and he had a piece of old innertube we could use. Jon cut a piece to fit around the pipe sample. We put the coupling on and it tightened up really well. Hope was restored. The real test would not come until at least Monday. I told everyone that if it worked, we’d nominate Jon for his McGyver merit badge.
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