The only beige MMM truck I've seen and it's ours (for now)!
(Title) Quote from my partner Tiffany on day 2 of heading out
well, not quite the field...on Wednesday we spent the day getting set in Tanzania. We went to the phone store to get TZ numbers for our phones, but the network was down so we had to return in the afternoon. (We did and connection was working!) On our way to lunch (at a fancy hotel in town) the truck I was driving started stuttering, flapping. Yep, flat tire and we hadn't even hit the rough dirt roads yet.
Thursday was our first day in the field. Tiffany and I dedicated 12 wells! It's a personal record for me! (And her as this is her first trip!) We drove out about an hour and a half and then never got back in the truck! Innocent, our Field Officer, moved the truck a little to be closer to the wells, but it was closer for us to go from well to well (that isn't to say they are that close together...just closer than going back UP to the truck and then down to the next well.). Needless to say, it was a long and exhausting day. But so good!
At the well, it always makes my heart leap when clear water comes out of the pump from the very beginning. Sadly this doesn't always happen. The bricks and gravel in the bottom are dusty or the water that began refilling before the brick walls were out in was already muddy. It clears up pretty quickly (usually) but sometimes it takes some time. Our last well on the first day was one of those. The water was so icky, we pumped and pumped and it didn't really change, but our team said that it would as they continued to pump the water out. Yesterday we went back to check on the well and get a good picture and the water was crystal clear!!! (I don't want to say that I didn't believe my team but I guess I did have my doubts.)
We were headed home after a good day of well installations. I got a bump (many of them really), but this one wasn't any bigger than the rest. Innocent said we need to stop, the pipes are loose. Woo i stop the truck and get out and the back pipe rack has folded backwards over the tail gate. The pipe racks are what hold the pipes as we head out over the roads (or foot paths or for tracks). And they are pretty important. We took the rack out of the holder and laid it in the back of the truck. Then ratcheted the pipes down but not too tight...We had to stop about 500 ft down the road because they had already bounced loose. Added a strap on the middle and they lasted longer...still a slow way back to the hotel. (New (to us) pipe rack the next day)
Innocent brings his whole crew to all the different wells. He says they can learn from each other. It is a great feel the way they all get along. In Tanzania, the villages are large and for the first days we were doing our installations all in one village (different villages each day). The villages are divided into hamlets which I think would correspond to what we normally think of as villages. There were few gifts at the individual wells but at the end of the day the village would provide dinner for the whole installation team. Rice (ugali once), chicken, beef, fish, or a combination, beans, cabbage, eggs. It is tasty. We eat and run as we have to get back to the hotel before dark (and sometimes we do get back!)
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