Two more villages have water

A rainbow appeared in the mist from the water shooting out of the freshly drilled borehole in Mpenda. 

Much like Namangale from 2025, Mpenda had an operating borehole that went dry in the dry season, forcing the villagers to walk long distances for water or draw contaminated water from holes in the wetlands of the riverbeds.

The villagers asked us to find a water source on top of the upland, in the center of the village. But as we investigated, we could easily see hard rock along the roads and fields next to the houses. This area would not provide a reliable water well. 

But as we extended our investigations down the slopes, we could tell where the hard rock stopped and the weathered rock began.

 It is this weathered rock that holds the water. 

Prince and Dorothy met alone with the villagers to discuss their options. We gave them two options for where knew we could give them a good water source -- one was better than the other.  They selected the better location.

The villagers were concerned that a borehole isolated from the houses would be a target for vandalism.  After some discussion,  one of the villagers agreed to build a new house along side the new borehole

 to guard it. 

The drillers encountered multiple water-bearing fractures and finished a new, high-quality borehole.

A week after the pump was installed, Dorothy organized a joint training with the driller and the water committees from both Mpenda and Namangale. 

The driller showed them how to disassemble the pump and explained what parts would need routine maintenance. He then helped them reassemble the pump. This half-day of training will be a critical step in the long-term sustainability of the new water source.

Masala 2 has been high on our priority list. When we visited in 2025, the chief told us she had 200 families and only one water source that had poor-quality water and went dry in October.  We conducted resistivitiy studies there for 2 days but did not find a likely water source.

We returned to Masala2 this year and learned that most of the villagers rely on the water source at the near-by trading center, a 1 ½ mile walk each way. As I worked around the fields of the village, I was struck as to how similar it was to the flat, clayey glacial landscape in much of central Illinois. And as I knew from Illinois, this type of land has marginal water resources. 

After three more days of investigations, we finally found an area in the corner of the village that looked very promising. But when Dorothy and Prince discussed this location with the chief, she was very disturbed: it was actually on the other side of the road from her village, and she was not on good terms with the neighboring chief. 

So, Prince moved the target location to her side of the road and drilling commenced. The driller was skeptical that we would find water, but then it came gushing out. 

“You’re very lucky, Tim, " he said. 

“No, we explored the entire village and found that this is the only area with a reasonable prospect for water.” 

He was very impressed. In fact, there was so much water-bearing sand that the driller couldn’t keep the hole open and had to stop drilling short of our desired depth. But it is a very good well, with lots of fresh water. Chief Masala was finally smiling.