Kenya Project Vol 4: Teamwork

With everything in full swing, the next few days fly by! The hardest work is done and now it is time to finish off the project. In this entry I show you our journey to finished project. Most of the next few days is spent actually working but naturally (because we're in Kenya) there was a bit of waiting around at a hardware store too!

So after a trip to buy some fittings for the guttering we commence work. Aim: to finish the concrete base, provide everything needed for the group to fit the guttering, and finish off installing the drip irrigation system.

The stages involved in finishing off the concrete base...

Once again you can see the whole community is involved in helping with the project.

One consideration for anyone considering doing a similar project is that making a concrete base uses so much water. If this project had been completed in the dry season then there is no way we could have made a base in the same way and we would have absolutely had to change our plans. Luckily we completed the project in the rainy season when their was a plentiful supply of water (that's why you might notice that it looks green in the pictures - it's certainly not always like this and the struggle for water is very real). The pictures that you see on here show a rose tinted version of realities of life out in the bush near Rombo.

Again, you can see, more water needed...

The base is finally coming together! Let's check it's level!

Just to smooth it off a bit and finish it.

Looking good!

The drip irrigation tank - progress

What do you do when you forget to put in a second and third hole for the drip irrigation tank but it's already in position. Climb up of course!

Note to self - always put the hole in the top of the tank before it's installed vertically or it poses a challenge. In this case, we were so keen to put the tank on it's base and take some pictures that when it arrived that we had attached the tap at the bottom of the tank but neglected to put in the overflow hole and the hole to connect the water pipe. In this case, we had to dangle Kelvin inside while he made the appropriate holes and Edward then had to pull him out. And trust me, not without some challenges! But where's the fun in doing everything perfect first time round anyway! Smile boys!

Attaching the pipe which sends water from a school 10km away to the water tank.

The pipe which takes water from the tank to the drip system was fitted yesterday, now it's time to connect the pipe which connects the water source from the neighbouring school (10km away) to the water tank. We used a connection on this pipe which allowed the women to disconnect it and move it. So if the water tank is full and they are still receiving water from the school they can disconnect the pipe and switch to filling up their jerry cans and cow trough. This will prevent unnecessary waste.

The stop tap shown here is used to prevent wasting any water. As you can see, it's dirty work. We all look dirty except for Edward. Edward always somehow manages to look clean despite getting stuck in!

Never working without an ample supply of chai.

We did have quite a number of tea and food breaks in the chair lady's house. It is offensive not to oblige so we did what we were told! On the last day we were given a huge fill of food and some traditional masai soup. The legend is that masai soup makes you able to eat more hence you get full, you drink the soup and then can eat more again. If you don't drink the soup then you're not a proper masai so we all, especially the young Masai's, tried to guzzle the soup which is quite distinctive!

The route to completion - finished.

And there it is...we have finished! We're all so happy! It's time to celebrate and to think about the future of the project to ensure that it is sustainable and to continue to offer our support. The only thing left to do is to put up the guttering which will feed into the second water tank but the group insisted on doing this themselves because they can already do it which they demonstrated by having a bit of guttering on one section of their building already. It's always good to respect the community's wishes so this is what we did.

Here are the after pictures to evidence their work..

Gutters are up and the tank is in action...

Happy completion pictures.

Having completed the project we head to the manyattas to take a celebratory picture. The manyattas which are the traditional mud houses of the masai and are often made from cow dung. The manyattas are where the rescued girls are housed (alongside the chair ladies own home). The chairlady is in the foreground in the red clothes.

Some of the group members had been restoring the manyattas while we were working on the water storage project. It's a whole family affair.

Smiles all around!

Thanks so so much to Edward, the driving force, Kelvin, our helping hand who travelled far to be with us, and all of the Eduet women, friends, family and neighbours. We have been a great team. I'm so glad that we could do this for you.

Manyatta interior.

Oh and this is what the inside of one of the manyattas looks like in case you were wondering....this was a new manyatta so these beds will have a mattress on top of them. Traditionally, the masai would use an animal skin for the mattress but times are changing. The Eduet women use manyattas to house the girls because they like to teach them about their traditions and want to keep traditions alive. The masai are a very proud group of people so they only want to eliminate harmful practices like FGM.

What's next? Time to ensure that we monitor the project to ensure that it is a success. See my Vol 5 post.