Of Making Holes in Stone
Mazalo (her name means "Saturday," after her birthday) says that her community's water source may not be much, "but at least it's not very far." We walked with her for about 20 minutes down an incline to the river, which in the dry season lies stagnet over its bedrock base. Mosquito larva wrigled in the semi-murky water that she scooped into her broad aluminum basin. Then we walked back, she with 15 to 20 gallons on her head, for another 20 minutes uphill. At least it's not very far.
Her community, Kaacade (pronouced KA-cha-de), needs water. According to my host David Reeves, its members came because the Togolese government took their for environmental conservation and gave them titles to the land they occupy now.
Thus the village has very little infrustracture, especially where water is concerned. The village has one central well which, in the dry season, holds less than one foot of water and a large frog. Tadpoles frequently accompany the innertube rubber bags used to pull up water. This well is also about 20 minutes from Mazalo's home.
Our first attempts were on Mazalo's land. Afer a week of crooked holes, hitting rock at five feet every time, experimenting with new bit designs, collapsing sand and gravel and the hassels of teaching a new crew how to drill, we had four holes no more than 10 feet deep.
The bit head broke off in two of the holes, one became unusable after too much sand and gravel collapsed, and another had rock beginning at arm's length, so we abandoned it at once. We put a pump in the last well, which was closest to the house and about 10 feet deep.
Mazalo's husband, Iyabane, assured us there would be water at that depth during the rainy season, but I cannot in good conscience call it a well, rainy season or otherwise.
Determined to make a well in the area, we tried again near the central community well in order to provide a more plentiful, cleaner water source. Rock appeared within the first few feet of every pilot hole we started, so it wasn't until our fifth try or so that we found a spot void of shallow rock at which to set up our rig.
After some difficulty keeping our hole straight, we finally arrived at a depth of 14 feet, the hand-dug well's water level. At the end of that day, we took out the pipe, and just to show a newcomer the depth of our well, we stuck a plastic pipe down the hole and it did not go as deep as we had hoped. In fact, it only went down about five feet. Rock had sealed off our hole.
It took some time to convince the drillers that this was not the product of witchcraft or the devil, or that if it was, then said powers of darkness used a perfectly natural method for their supernatural malevolence, i.e., a rock had slid over or else we drilled through a layer of collapseable rock, as we theorized to have encountered in some areas of Ethiopia.
We tried to break through the rock the next day and our bit broke off because the hole was wide at the top so our hits were crooked on the rock. Since the bit was near the top, we chose to dig down five feet to get the bit and remove the obstrusive stone. As we suspected, a single stone from a layer full of grapefruit-sized single stones had slid into our hole.
Thus we continued, until our bit broke off at the bottom of the hole. And then we reemed. And the reemer bit broke off at the bottom of the hole because we put it down with a cracked pipe attachment piece (a flimsy, cast iron reducer, more specifically).
Yet our problem hasn't been drilling through rock, or at least not that alone. The problem has been drilling crookedly through the rock. If the hole is not straight, the bits strike the rock at an angle, inducing the sideways stress that bends and smashes off the bit. In clay the side of the hole can be worn down and straightened, but stone is less forgiving.
So we finished our hole at 17 feet, and we're still developing it. We think it's producing about half a liter every 10 minutes. We're hoping for five liters every minute, at least. If one pumps this water out regularly, new water channels may open up and the well could produce more water than one can pump out. Having left the residents of Kaacade developing the well, we went back Friday and the recharge hadn't improved, so the well may not be workable.
After some rest on a weekend safari, as described in the previous post, we began and finished another well at Lassa Tchou, where we made our first well. We had planned to return, regardless of what would happen in Kaacade, with hopes of having the crew there make several wells in their village so that they will be sufficiently trained on basics and fundamentals to try out the technique in other areas on their own.
New logistical difficulties soon arose. Early rains have come, understandably prompting many who would help us drill to work their fields instead, so help is harder to find, although we've found enough to keep working. The village residents are also busy repairing their homes after the occasional hail and wind storms.
For three days in a row, after six hours of scorching sun, the evening unleashed towering thunderheads, sweeping them over the mountains and letting loose their avalanches of rain, hail, lightning and wind that tore tin roofs from houses, fell trees and rendered everything beyond 100 feet invisible amid the torrents. Fortunately such storms have let up for the time being, along with the eight-hour power blackouts that accompany them.
And they did not stop us from completing our well at 30 feet! Who knows? With more than a full week left, we may get another well in yet.
Her community, Kaacade (pronouced KA-cha-de), needs water. According to my host David Reeves, its members came because the Togolese government took their for environmental conservation and gave them titles to the land they occupy now.
Thus the village has very little infrustracture, especially where water is concerned. The village has one central well which, in the dry season, holds less than one foot of water and a large frog. Tadpoles frequently accompany the innertube rubber bags used to pull up water. This well is also about 20 minutes from Mazalo's home.
Our first attempts were on Mazalo's land. Afer a week of crooked holes, hitting rock at five feet every time, experimenting with new bit designs, collapsing sand and gravel and the hassels of teaching a new crew how to drill, we had four holes no more than 10 feet deep.
The bit head broke off in two of the holes, one became unusable after too much sand and gravel collapsed, and another had rock beginning at arm's length, so we abandoned it at once. We put a pump in the last well, which was closest to the house and about 10 feet deep.
Mazalo's husband, Iyabane, assured us there would be water at that depth during the rainy season, but I cannot in good conscience call it a well, rainy season or otherwise.
Determined to make a well in the area, we tried again near the central community well in order to provide a more plentiful, cleaner water source. Rock appeared within the first few feet of every pilot hole we started, so it wasn't until our fifth try or so that we found a spot void of shallow rock at which to set up our rig.
After some difficulty keeping our hole straight, we finally arrived at a depth of 14 feet, the hand-dug well's water level. At the end of that day, we took out the pipe, and just to show a newcomer the depth of our well, we stuck a plastic pipe down the hole and it did not go as deep as we had hoped. In fact, it only went down about five feet. Rock had sealed off our hole.
It took some time to convince the drillers that this was not the product of witchcraft or the devil, or that if it was, then said powers of darkness used a perfectly natural method for their supernatural malevolence, i.e., a rock had slid over or else we drilled through a layer of collapseable rock, as we theorized to have encountered in some areas of Ethiopia.
We tried to break through the rock the next day and our bit broke off because the hole was wide at the top so our hits were crooked on the rock. Since the bit was near the top, we chose to dig down five feet to get the bit and remove the obstrusive stone. As we suspected, a single stone from a layer full of grapefruit-sized single stones had slid into our hole.
Thus we continued, until our bit broke off at the bottom of the hole. And then we reemed. And the reemer bit broke off at the bottom of the hole because we put it down with a cracked pipe attachment piece (a flimsy, cast iron reducer, more specifically).
Yet our problem hasn't been drilling through rock, or at least not that alone. The problem has been drilling crookedly through the rock. If the hole is not straight, the bits strike the rock at an angle, inducing the sideways stress that bends and smashes off the bit. In clay the side of the hole can be worn down and straightened, but stone is less forgiving.
So we finished our hole at 17 feet, and we're still developing it. We think it's producing about half a liter every 10 minutes. We're hoping for five liters every minute, at least. If one pumps this water out regularly, new water channels may open up and the well could produce more water than one can pump out. Having left the residents of Kaacade developing the well, we went back Friday and the recharge hadn't improved, so the well may not be workable.
After some rest on a weekend safari, as described in the previous post, we began and finished another well at Lassa Tchou, where we made our first well. We had planned to return, regardless of what would happen in Kaacade, with hopes of having the crew there make several wells in their village so that they will be sufficiently trained on basics and fundamentals to try out the technique in other areas on their own.
New logistical difficulties soon arose. Early rains have come, understandably prompting many who would help us drill to work their fields instead, so help is harder to find, although we've found enough to keep working. The village residents are also busy repairing their homes after the occasional hail and wind storms.
For three days in a row, after six hours of scorching sun, the evening unleashed towering thunderheads, sweeping them over the mountains and letting loose their avalanches of rain, hail, lightning and wind that tore tin roofs from houses, fell trees and rendered everything beyond 100 feet invisible amid the torrents. Fortunately such storms have let up for the time being, along with the eight-hour power blackouts that accompany them.
And they did not stop us from completing our well at 30 feet! Who knows? With more than a full week left, we may get another well in yet.
posted by El Peregrino at
10:16 AM
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