ntial show-stopper was removing the old hand pump from Yalbac's well. The government said they would come and do it last Friday, and then on Monday or Tuesday. Over dinner on Tuesday night our team started discussing what Plan B, C or D might be if the government didn't show. At around 10:30 on Wednesday morning a pickup with four guys arrived to dismantle the pump. As with repairing your car the job was essentially pretty simple but without a few key pieces of know-how and one or two critical tools it would have have been nearly impossible for us to tackle ourselves.The picture shows the workers extracting steel pipe fifteen feet at a time, disconnecting a section and then extracting another fifteen feet. The pipe went down ninety feet. The top of the water in the well is at sixty five feet and the bottom of the well is at 102 feet. Tomorrow will will install a submersible electric pump at the end of ninety feet of PVC.
Dan and Aki made a mid afternoon trip to Home Depot (or the Belizean equivalent) to pick up parts for installing the new pump. While there they met a local who ran a well drilling business who gave them tips on everything they needed to know for installing the new pump. He even promised to drop by and inspect our handiwork to make sure we have it set up right.
While this was going on, I was laying out the components for the water treatment board. I then started installing the plumbing for the external water tanks as shown in the next picture. Anne and Chuck made their initial contacts with the nearby school and have setup a teaching session for Thursday afternoon. Friday is a national holiday (Labor Day / May Day) so this will be their only chance while school is in session.Harrison, the Yalbac village council Chairman, dropped by several times during the day to review our progress and lend a hand. Several locals helped out during the day and thankfully dug the ditch from the well to the water building. At the end of the day Harrison treated us to fresh coconut sliced open with a machete under a coconut tree next to the water building.
We could have accomplished more but we certainly could have accomplished much less.
To God be the glory,
Dave
3 comments:
It's good to see that everything (so far) is working out. We will keep praying that this continues.
Fresh coconut... yum! Just make sure Dan doesn't use one of the machetes.
It's rather amazing how much coconut water (Harrison's word) is in a coconut fresh off the tree. It's FULL TO THE TOP! I'm used to the store bought husked coconuts with a couple ounces tops. These had probably 10 ounces or more.
Delicious!
- dan
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