Water Work

Paul has continued to be busy in work over the past few months. As well as specifying and overseeing a bit of survey work; the project budget has been re-worked, Monitoring and Evaluation documents compiled as well as meeting with local stakeholders. Getting the survey sorted was an interesting experience. In a country where you haggle and bargain over the price of a handful of tomatoes, it was no real surprise to spend many hours talking, arguing and pleading over costs. After finally coming to an agreement, we also decided one of the ‘Water Team’ should be with the surveyors at all times to keep an eye of them. Thankfully we had a work experience student with us who was an ideal candidate for that!

The villages of Maganzo and Masagala are located about half an hour drive north of Shinyanga, beside the main Shinyanga-Mwanza road. The communities are very close to Mwadui diamond mine and they do a lot of ‘local’ mining so you have to watch out for large holes when you walk and drive around the area. The target population of approximately 12,000 currently have no access to a reliable, clean water source. People can buy unclean water from small dams or shallow wells nearby but for drinking water, they go to a dam 6km away. There is no other water infrastructure of any sort in the area despite the houses, guesthouses, shops etc. – all water is collected in buckets and walked or cycled to where they are.

ICS is working closely with KASHWASA (Kahama Shinyanga Water Supply and Sewage Authority) who are responsible for taking water from Lake Victoria before treating and pumping to Shinyanga. The project will be taking water from their pipeline and supplying it to 25 public water points. KASHWASA are keen to see the project succeed and have provided technical assistance at various stages, sent Engineers to help with the design and given us over 3km of pipe to use wherever we need. This local participation is useful for ICS now but will also help the project’s sustainability due to the support of those who provide the water and maintain the system.

The project is currently in the detailed design phase so there has been lots of studying of the Tanzania Water Supply Design Manual and discussions about pipe materials, population figures, how many people will actually use our new taps and the like. For the past few months, we have been concentrating on office work because of the Election. Not as a result of any safety concerns, but because very few people believe that we are serious about providing them with a water supply system – they have been convinced we are politicians making empty promises. So the general plan has been to wait until the elections are over and then go back and tell the community we are still here - quite a simple plan really!

Swahili word of the day: Maji safi na salama (Safe and clean water)