The side wall and MGU team are up

The mason applying plaster on the sidewall

In terms of the construction update, the side wall has been erected. A coat of plaster has also been applied on the exterior surface. The remaining days will be used to apply the last layer of cement and plaster on the interior surface, install the gutters, put up the mild steel sheets and build the filter units. We also plan to trim the tree branches around the system to prevent leaf debris and birds droppings from accumulating on the system’s catchment area.

The Kottayam District of Kerala has recently banned sand mining. Therefore, it has been impossible to purchase river sand, one of the essential building materials, within the Kottayam District. The lack of materials has led to a few days of delay. Fortunately, there is some sand available from a neighboring construction site that we can use for now. The second challenge we face is installing a filter system which will function properly. According to literatures on slow sand filters, they are capable of filtering out 90-99% of bacteria. However, we found that fecal coliform is present in all rain water samples collected from Achinakom Village’s existing ferrocement tank. After discussing with Dr. Abhirosh, Sylas and Rahul, we think that there are 3 possible explanations- 1) the slow sand filter is functioning properly, however the catchment area is highly contaminated, hence even after filtering, fecal coliform is still present in the storage tank; 2) the filter is not functioning properly, this might be due to an insufficient retention time or the poor design/construction of the filter and; 3) the rainwater harvesting system is not maintained/cleaned properly by the users.

In order to shed light on why there is such a high fecal coliform level in the existing rainwater harvesting tank, we will build several slow sand filters in the MGU School of Environmental Sciences laboratory and test their filtering capabilities.

Side wall and supports. The 3 openings are for the overflow, outlet and inlet respectively.

We had a second and third official MGU Rainwater for Humanity student team meetings on September 17 and September 22 respectively. Dr. Thomas clarified how such community work/service like RW4H are learning opportunities and how it fits with the academic program in the Department. Afterward, Sylas and I explained the 4 areas that the students can work on, namely Technical design, Women empowerment, Water quality and Communication. The students then freely joined whichever team that was interesting to them. Each team also nominated a coordinator to be the contact person. As most of the first-year Master students are unfamiliar with the Kuttanad region, we are planning a field-trip to the Achinakom Village and the surrounding area soon.

MGU SES Master students Renuka, Raisa and Ambily going over the survey in Mayalam and English for tracking impact.

On a personal note, I managed to stop by a supermarket in the area a few days ago. There, I found “Red Delicious” apples! I am having a kanka mouth sore, most probably from consuming too much curry. Together with a bunch of tissue rolls (a luxury too, as each of them is equivalent to the price of a meal in a restaurant i.e. Rs 35 or USD 0.7), I left the supermarket with joy and much anticipation to sink my teeth in the apples.

satisfaction