We Have Success!

10 May 2008

We have success! We now have water pumping to the bunkhouse building. This building is a single story building with 10 rooms that can house our pilot, doctors and nurses. RAM has medical teams that come out to Guyana throughout the year and now they will have a place to stay that will have clean water as well as flush toilets and showers. The site, which will be known as the RAM Center, will also be a center for traveling doctors to host medical clinics and surgeries.

Of course, just getting water to the building is only the first phase of our project. As soon as we pressurized the water system, most of the rooms had leaks of some sort, and two rooms flooded. It was a wet and muddy mess. Many of the sinks have a constant drip, as do the showers. Some toilets have a continuous stream of water. As water is not an unlimited resource here, each of these items must be fixed.

The building is many years old. The water system in the building is galvanized pipe that is set into the cement structure. The pipes exit, then a rubber hose is clamped onto the extended pipe. From the rubber hose, various fittings are clamped onto the system to feed the toilets or sinks. Every one of these will have to be removed and a valve placed on the exiting pipe. This way if a leak develops, the system can be isolated and water saved.

As we are nearing the completion of the water project, our team is now moving towards repairing and refurbishing the rooms of the bunkhouse. Bat guano must be removed from the floors and walls of many of the rooms. Old wasps nets and dirt are now a muddy mess in the rooms that flooded. Support structures need to be built to protect the filter systems and solar systems. We also need to buy a second water tank and install it on the water tower as one of the two original water tanks was leaking and was unable to be repaired.

Funds for the project have nearly been exhausted, and while RAM’s only expectation is to have clean water, we have the ability to make the RAM center a much more functional site as well as a place where volunteers exiting the jungle can get a taste of the modern world and a few comforts of home. After speaking with Stan Brock, of RAM, he has agreed to loan SOAR $1,500.00 USD to continue improving the site. I suspect it will be enough to make a significant impact on this site.

One interesting item for this project is an invention of Arthur Mills. To maintain a steady rate of chlorination for the water, we needed a system to inject chlorine into the water pipe before entering the water tank. An electronic device costs $10,000.00. Arthur created a device with a water bucket, a few pieces of PVC pipes and hoses, a bottle of bleach and an IV tubing system.

The bucket holds the bleach. At the bottom, a hole is drilled with a one-way valve placed at the exit. The IV drip spike is then inserted into the line draining from the bleach and is glued in place. The IV drip line then is attached to a large needed and the needle is inserted into a rubber stopper in a T-valve where the bevel of the IV is distal to the water flow. This creates a venturi effect that sucks the chlorine out and into the pipe. With the use of the IV flow adjustment dial, a person can adjust the around of chlorine to be used. By monitoring with test strips that tell the amount of chlorine in the system, subtle adjustments can be made to the system to accurately maintain the proper level of chlorination.

Of interest, about half of the team is now suffering from diarrhea that is probably the result of contact with the river water. It is an important reminder of why we are hear and we know we can spare future volunteers from this common problem.