If at first you don't succeed....

Last week, Rog went out with a teammate to a Fulani village a couple of hours away to attempt to drill a well and provide water to a family that did not have easy access to water. Rog knew that he only had experience drilling in limited soil conditions, but the well was needed yesterday, so they went out to try. I was not able to go along, so all the following pictures are courtesy of our teammate.

3 of our team's 4 white double Hiluxes were required to drive out. Ours had all the drilling equipment and pipes needed for the pump, the other 2 had barrels of water in the back. (Water is needed to drill for water! Since there was no water readily available, we had to bring our own.)  

A nice shady spot was picked near a mango tree (but the shade did not last long). Picking a spot is both a science and an art. Though we want to make sure it is a spot that has an aquifer underneath, we also want to make sure it is a spot where people will come to get the water. Mango trees are a good indicator of water, and fortunately the village grandma wanted the pump there too!

An intern working in Niger was a great help and encouragement to Rog. How do you move a full 200L barrel of water off a truck?! One way is to siphon the water from one barrel into an empty one on the ground. Instead of sucking on the hose with his mouth, Rog is starting the siphon with a PVC pump.

The spot was cleared and drilling began. They started with a hand auger, which works very well in sand and loam (sand and clay mixture, mostly sand). The whole point of manual drilling (by hand) is to keep it affordable and sustainable for villagers to use and replicate one day.

Unfortunately, Rog wasn't expecting (nor was he ready for) a ton of clay. But that's exactly what they found. With some difficulty, they got through 4 meters....

...and then they hit coarse gravel mixed with the clay, which is even tougher! 2 hours of drilling in this only yielded another 0.5 meters.

The next day, Rog tried a different technique, using a pump to draw out the clay and gravel (the bottom of the pump has a drill bit on the end). This was working pretty well ...until the bit broke off in the hole!! They weren't able to fish it out, and so had to start a new hole. 

Thankfully, Rog had extra drill bits, and here he is using a camp stove (not seen) to heat up PVC pipe. One of the things we want to be able to do is show locals how they can do this themselves. 

With progress on the new hole going slowly, they realized that the well was not going to get finished in the foreseeable future, so they packed things up and headed home. 

Rog is planning to head out again in a few weeks to continue drilling this well, but one of the most challenging things for him on this first trip were all the people. There were young and old alike and there is no such thing as personal space here, even if safety is an issue. Since drilling looked simple enough, they would come and take the equipment from Rog's hands to have a go at it for themselves. This is one of the reasons the drill bit broke off (the other reason was that it was not made to be handled roughly). We are trying to be culturally appropriate and not offend people (it would not have been appropriate to grab the equipment back and yell for them to stay back), but we also need to be able to do the work necessary to provide them the well they so desperately want. Please pray for wisdom as we find a balance. For now, Rog is back at work researching, designing and having equipment built for manually drilling hard clay. We will keep you updated on what happens.

Thanks for your support!