Pleasant Surprises

The last week has been one with some pleasant surprises!  To start off, remember how it had been really hot and sunny the week before?  The past week has been rainy and cool.  Although it can make doing work a little difficult sometimes, twice it has rained hard enough that we leave our dishes under the overhang of the roof to soak and wash.  Less trips to the borehole!

Another water-related pleasant surprise is the result of some of our water tests.  We've tested for total coliforms from both boreholes in Obodan.  "Borehole 1" tested positive, but "Borehole 2" has tested negative - or very very low counts of coliform, which we certainly didn't expect. This is great news, because this borehole is the one that we are planning to have as the source of the distribution system.

I promised pictures last time, and the only pictures I have on my laptop are ones of the coliform tests... but the colors are pretty so here they are:

Borehole 1: the foam and gel at the surface of the water (which has turned orange/yellow) is a sign of coliform presence.

Borehole 2: no foam! no gel!

Of course this doesn't mean that there are no coliforms whatsoever coming from Borehole 2- in fact, there may be some but just as a lower concentration. This is still much better than we expected though.
Even the water they sell in plastic sachets tested positive for coliforms.

Update on latrine construction: we've put in the door (complete with spring-hinges so that it shuts on its own) and the roof- now what we have left is the floor slab inside, ventilation pipes, the slab to cover the back of the pit, stairs to the door and some holes in the wall (holes? I know there's actually a more accurate word than that..) for light. 

Time to go now. Hopefully a picture of construction will be up next time!