Two weeks of drilling

We have had two great weeks of drilling and have two wells to show for it!  Colin and the crew have been working really hard these last few weeks to get some wells done before the rains start and we lose most of our help. They drilled the first well at the church in Obule and the second well in Pingere near Lake Kyoga.  The well at the church isn’t going to make a great dry season well just yet.  It may turn out to be a great well, but right now because it is so dry it has only one foot of water in the bottom of the casing.  However, once the rains start it should have more water and work fine.  We were really hoping that it was going to be a high producing well and that we could use it to do demonstration with irrigation and farming at the church during the dry season, but we may have to find another location for that.  It’s ok though.  This is why we are here, and we knew there was going to be a learning curve with drilling in this area. 

Colin and Moses getting the pilot hole started in Obule Okalis.

Odongo Sam, Immanuel, and Ojoke drilling through tough rock.

The second well in Pingere was completely different.  It took only one full day to get down into the sand and 11 meters in the ground.  It took six days to do that in Obule.  In Pingere we were able to case it the second day and found that the water came up 8 meters in the casing!  We have hit one road block and that is silt that has collected around the filter and that makes it hard for the water to enter the casing and fill the rising main.  But we do have a solution.  We are going to pump water with a trash pump back down the casing and try and force the silt away and out of the hole.  Then gravel and sand pack around the filter in hopes that the sand will help catch some of the finer silt.  Colin has been in contact with another driller in the area who uses a rotary rig and his advice to continue conditioning the well and backwashing the silt from the hole. 

While we were drilling in Pingere we stayed one night.  It was my first time sleeping in a round mud hut, and it was great!  I actually slept!  That never happens when we are out in the village for the first night.  Pingere is a neat place.  It is right on Lake Kyoga and that meant we got to eat great fresh fish!  Colin and all the guys went to the lake so they could bathe and he said that for most of them it was the first time they had ever been around a lake.  He said they were a bit fearful because they all thought that it was going to have a beach and slowly get deep, but that is not the case.  There is lots of grass that grows on the edge and you have to take a hollowed out tree boat to the open water.  Once the guys got out in the boats in the deep water, the lake became real!  But almost everyone LOVED it!  When Jimmy (the guy we drilled a well with) said that it was time to go back, Moses (one of our guys that works for us) stood up in the boat and told him that he didn’t want to go back!  Solomon (another one of our workers) could not believe that he stood up in a boat in a lake.  We had a good laugh while eating that evening as the two went back and forth over Moses standing up and being brave and Solomon being fearful and crawling around the bottom of the boat never letting go of the sides.  Not one of the 15 or so guys that helped with the drilling and went on the lake adventure can swim.

This is the truck we hired to haul all of our equipment from Obule to Pingere.  

We are so very thankful to be able to go and work with these wonderful people.  They always thank us for coming and that we are blessing them, but truth be told, we are being blessed more than they will ever know.  This truly is a wonderful place with wonderful people and we know that God has great plans for this area.  We are excited to be just a small part of it. 

Ojoke and Samuel drilling Pingere.

Thank you to everyone that continues to pray for us and sends us encouraging words.  We love hearing from our friends and family, so please continue to write!  We try and respond to everyone that sends us a message, but if we have failed to do so please forgive us and resend.  Our power and internet come and go here, so we may have read it and wanted to respond but due to a bad connection we may not have been able to.

We will start drilling again on Monday at my new friend Helen’s home.  So keep us in your prayers on Monday!