Wednesday, June 8:

On Monday when we were pumping water into the storage tank, the pump would shut off after pumping for only about 8 minutes. This had been very puzzling. If there was as much water in the well as the measurements and the information Dennis gave us indicated, the pump should have kept pumping without a problem. Late Monday, Jon had turned on the pump but partially closed the valve at the well head so that much less that the full volume of water the pump was capable of pumping was actually being pumped out of the well. This enabled the pump to keep pumping without stopping. It also suggested that there may be less water in the well than we had originally estimated.

On Tuesday, Jon had turned on the pump with the valve only partly opened and let it keep pumping in order to fill the tank completely. About 1:30 in the morning, one of the security guards had contacted Elisha to let him know that the water tank was over-filling (Elisha and Jon had disabled the automatic shutoff). Elisha had gone over during the night and turned the pump off.

When we arrived in the morning, we were ready to test fully the T-junction to see if the last effort yesterday had been successful. Visually, everything looked good – no obvious leaks anywhere, everything still intact. As Jon began to open the valve, he was very surprised to find out that it was already open. Larry hurried over to the water tower to see if we had closed one of the two valves there instead but they were both wide open also. None of us, including Dennis and Elisha, had any idea who might have opened the valve after we left it yesterday afternoon. This was disturbing since we still didn’t know if the water in the storage tank was free of E. Coli. The very positive news that the final attempt to connect the lines to the T-junction had been completely successful with no leaks was greatly overshadowed by a new mystery and concern about the potentially bad water getting to people’s homes.

With the connection accomplished, the next task was to build a brick enclosure surrounding the junction so that it could be protected but still permit access for servicing. We had looked at other similar enclosures on the hospital grounds so we knew about what needed to be done. As we began gathering bricks and stone cement the brick enclosure, the man in charge of the construction of the Outpatient Building, Timothy, advised on what was wrong with our plan and how it should be done given the particular types of bricks available to us. He said he could build the enclosure fairly quickly. After discussing it among ourselves and having Dennis discuss with him how much it would cost to have him do it, we decided the only reasonable thing to do was pay Timothy to build the enclosure. Timothy agreed to do it for 50,000 Kwacha (i.e., about $11). It seemed like a deal too good to turn down.

While Timothy worked on the enclosure, we cut rebar as reinforcement for a concrete lid for the enclosure Timothy would also build. Then we went back to the mission house to meet with a team from World Hope that had arrived at the request of Drs. Dan and Joan to explore re-opening an old bore hole at the back of the mission compound property. The tests the World Hope folks conducted indicated there wasn’t enough water in the well to be worthwhile and the casing was too small for their drill bit to fit inside so a whole new well would have to be drilled. Jon and the others were amazed at the techniques they used to find prospective sources of water where a new well could be dug. They tried two different techniques: one was much like diving rods but these were two L-shape coat-hanger like wires held in separate hands that cross each other near a water source, the other was a water-filled coke bottle held on the open palm of your hand while walking around the property. The coke bottle begins to lean and spill over at the site of a water source. While most of us were fascinated but incredulous, these guys said they have used these methods to choose successfully the drilling sites for hundreds of wells.

The World Hope technicians told us that virtually all wells in Zambia are no more than 50 meters deep (instead of the 70 or 80 meters Dennis had told us). The also said the pumps are usually situated about 3 meters below the static water level in the well. If this applied to the three wells at the hospital, it would explain why the pump in well 3 was shutting off so quickly. It would also alter some of our calculations of the wells’ capacities appreciably downward. Based on this alternative information, Jon re-calculated the capacities as follows:

Well # 12-13 gallons per minute

Well # 2: 16-17 gallons per minute

Well # 3: 90 gallons per minute (but with some questions about this because the probe would get caught up on the pump making the true depth suspect).

These are still adequate but much less robust than our preliminary calculations and provide even greater reason for wanting well 3 to be useful so the pressure on well 1 can be relieved.

Later we helped Million repair the metal door at the rear of the maintenance enclosure at the hospital. We also discussed how it might be possible to take the old water storage tanks down from their towers for use elsewhere. Dr. Dan hoped one could be used at the mission house and the other at the new water tower at the back of the property. Without a crane, a good solution wasn’t obvious. It looked like another McGyver moment.