Before the snow flies

Right now is a busy time for physical projects in community development.  All the farm work is done so more men are available, and there are a few weeks remaining until it will be too cold to pour concrete.  In case you are interested I will give you the rundown of the projects we hope to finish before freezing temps and snow, and what each of the participants roles in the projects are.

Village "MZ"

Situation:  This village is eager to get irrigation working again in their village.  Until 3 or 4 years ago they were directing a mountain spring to their village with dirt canals, but the 700+ meter hillside canals were irreparably damaged by avalanches.  They know that we have done plastic pipelines before so they have requested for us to assist them in making their irrigation more efficient and durable.   

Project:  We are going to dam the stream coming from a mountain spring, and feed it into a 2.5 inch pipe that will run to the top of the village, where it can feed at least 3 different canal routes in order to irrigate all the yards and small fields in the village.

Community's role: They will supply all the labor and local materials.  That means rocks, gravel and sand for building the dam, canal, and settling pool before the pipe.  They will also dig a ditch by hand shovel, the entire 700+ meters length, 1 meter deep. 

CDP team's role: We will supply the non-local materials (like cement and pipe) and the engineering support that exceeds their own capacity.  We also advocate for the poorest farmers in the village to make sure that they do not have to work harder than others to get an even share of the irrigation water. 

My personal role: This is this team’s first irrigation project so I am responsible for making sure that it gets done right, and making sure the end result is just and fair for all in the community.  It's easy for guys to miss the social justice or injustice that happens in physical projects, so I'm working with our facilitators every step of the way to make sure that they are noticing all the times and ways that the project can go awry or poor people lose out.  To make sure it goes right I have to be the technical consultant, meaning that I take the plans of my local engineer and test and calculate them to make sure they will work.  The way he was surveying, for example, was lacking accuracy, so I made him a 5-meter fluid communicating vessel and trained him to use that.  We also have to stretch the pipe across a 35 meter valley, so as he gets his materials and plans figured out I'll calculate the weight and figure what kind of foundation anchors we will need on both sides of the valley.

Project cost: CDP team is budgeting $4000.  Local labor will be valued around $2500 (they won’t get paid, but this is the value we can attribute to their labor contribution, at the local labor wage)

Project benefit: In the fall this source will not provide much water (14,000 liters/day right now), but the community is very eager to restore this source of irrigation because of the supply it offers in spring and summer.  Using a pipeline will guarantee more water makes it to the village rather than being lost in the dirt canal.  Restoring irrigation will allow this village to double their first-season wheat harvest, plant fruit trees, and plant some second-season crops as well. 

Village AQ:

Context: This is the drinking water pipeline village (aka pants-less welldigger), so I have told this context on several chapters before.

Project: to divert the current single water pipe so that it sends water to 2 additional faucets in different parts of the village, by turn.

Community role: They first have to establish some agreements as a community, before we will start the physical works with them. Then they have to supply local materials and labor.  This means digging the ditch and bringing rocks, gravel and sand for the faucet foundations and valve boxes. 

CDP teams role: Same as in MZ: supply of non-local materials and technical support.  The team does have to work harder on the social aspects of this project, because the problem causing this project is partly their fault- they missed some important and powerful opinions last winter when they were planning the original pipeline. 

My personal role: This is the community that has experienced a number of petty conflicts (and some not-so-petty), so I have made it my job in this village to keep contact with several key people and support them in maintaining peace and cooperation among their own community.  I also play engineer in this project, but mostly I am using my technical work as opportunities to stay among the men and observe how the relationships there work.

Actually, my role in the technical aspect of this has been important, because we are nearing the limit of what the electrical submersible well pump can do.  It is rated for 120 meters of head, but calculating in the inefficiencies and friction throughout the system, and it seems we’re quite close.  Fortunately on Wed the team and the community were able to carry out a test that I gave them: they rolled 200 meter of 40mm hard plastic pipe up the hill, hooked it up to the reservoir, and turned on the pump to see what the flow rate would be at that higher elevation.  There was about a 40% drop in flow rate from that at the reservoir, but I think the community can reshuffle the number of families that go to each of the 3 water points, so that it stays somewhat equal.

Project cost:  CDP team is budgeting $800.  The communities labor is going to be nearly the same!

Project benefit: Simply put, this project makes 3 water points in a village that has had only 1 since we finished the well and first pipeline in April.  The reason that this is a big deal is that the village counts themselves as 3 neighborhoods.  When I finally realized that, and voiced that back to the community leaders, it changed the whole dynamic of how our relationships and work with them; we had finally seen life through their eyes.  You might still be asking: why 3 neighborhoods?  Gender, religion, age, and rich and poor all factor into this.  Women were not supposed to be crossing from one neighborhood to the other at the time of day that water was available.  Water was supposed to be more locally available for washing for prayers.  Men were continually cutting in line in front of children.  The rich were using vast amounts of water and the poor were not getting enough even for drinking.  Enough convoluted reasons for this paragraph?  To be honest, these new water pipes and collection points are not going to solve the whole issue, but they stand the chance of putting us in a better position to continue to work with this community and get some of these unsavory tendencies dealt with.  In the long run, I believe it will have been worth it to do this extra work and expense.  By the end of this week we should have the pipes installed and water flowing to all three collection points (one at a time that is!)

Village KT:

(writeup coming soon, it’s too late tonight!)