Can you imagine taking 4 to 6 hours of your day to get water and then bring it home?
The rainy season in Kenya is
March to May
and
November to December
but the amount
of rainfall varies year to year.
Many streams dry up in the "dry seasons."
The yellow containers keep the water moving.
How about building a sand dam?
Build a dam in a stream.
The upstream side fills up with sand.
The sand becomes a "water tank" to hold water in the volume of the sand,
60% water 40% sand.
Dig down in the sand.
In a few seconds the hole has water ready to be dipped out.
The sand dams are built in two phases. The first one is five foot tall. The second is another five foot on the first phase.
The downstream side still has water available.
About 2% of the water flowing down the stream is held back with minimal impact on the downstream ecology.
Looking up stream, there's a lot of sand which equals a lot of water!
The shady spot on the upper left contains a hole dug down in the sand to be a regular water supply for people and animals.
The road passes right over the top of the sand tank.
The future seed bank building made from bricks that used water and clay from the sand dam then built by the local self help group.
Some members of the self help group with Carol and Melissa.
Benefits of Sand Dams
• Water
for humans – cleaner
• Water
for animals
• Water
for plants – raises water table
• Vegetables
& fruit to sell
• Resolves
water conflicts
• Brick
making
• Stops
erosion
• Travel
time to retrieve water is drastically reduced
Melissa in front of the site of the first sand dam.
James Kenyaria, Director of Utooni, showing and telling us about the raised water table and raising bananas.
Mrs. Mukusya telling us about her late husband's vision to have water available all year round.
Future site for a meter and a half/five feet high dam.
The local self help group will provide sand, stones, labor, food and child care during the construction. Utooni provides the site study and engineering. Mennonite Central Committee and other non-governmental organizations provide cement, rewire and re-bar.
http://mcc.org/learn/what/food-water
Some children of the community watching Melissa.
Carol, Rhoda Silu Mukusya and Melissa
The staff at Utooni taught us so much about the vision and development of sands dams!
The next time you get water out of your faucet pray for the people of the world working to get water supplies available to more residents of this earth.
Thanks so much for the inspiration to help life to flourish.
Learning from our visit to Kenya.
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