Yesterday was our village general body meeting.

The goal of this (very important) meeting was to make our mission and guiding principles clear to the village as a whole, and to propose a few sustainable business models we can adopt together going forward. From the start, we knew this was going to be a difficult proposition. Our messages to the villagers have been mixed and somewhat contradictory. The first constructions have been provided free of cost, and subsequent efforts over the past months to communicate the importance of a payback plan have not been sufficiently planned and marketed to the benefit of the users. It is unfortunate it took so long, but this was the opportunity to be entirely clear about our intentions, capabilities, and seriousness about implementing a pay-back model.

To this end, we enlisted the help of several senior advisors. This is a difficult balancing act in itself. Although they lend us legitimacy in the eyes of the villagers (without which we could not have come this far), it becomes much more difficult to control the message and information when it is coming from three or four different sources.

This “General Body” meeting was convened in the village with about sixty local women (an audience large enough to get the information to the bulk of the population) and ten of us from the university or otherwise affiliated with R4H. Urmila, a local Brown student, was also there, giving much-needed interpretation help to Sophie, Zach, and I. After introductions and statements from a few leaders, we heard testimonials from users of the first systems.

Sylas then presented the main information about our mission and the proposed sustainability plans to begin implementing. Although the projector lost power about halfway through, he got the bulk of the information across (the presentation, in English and Malayalam, will be posted later). The floor was then opened to questions, where a few issues became clear.

Immediately, the central issue was the unfairness in asking them to start paying when those fortunate enough to get the first systems are ensured free water. They are entirely right, of course, but unfortunately our options are limited as this point. We have no leverage over the current users, who made no commitment to pay back, so this transition will be difficult regardless. The meeting adjourned with the understanding that the current users would discuss among themselves a “fair” way to proceed, possibly beginning to pay the same rates for water we are asking from the next beneficiaries. This would be an excellent way to resolve the issue, otherwise we can only stress that the economic benefits we are presenting are appealing enough to overcome lingering concerns about equity between the different sets of users.

The actual economic merits of the plans were largely overshadowed by these systemic questions, but the central message about the possibility for cost and time savings did get across. People need a few days to actually consider how these plans would work for them, so we will hear feedback next week. I am optimistic that once the organizational issues are resolved between the villagers (a process they are very good at), we can discuss the specifics of an economic plan with one or several potential user groups.

Other miscellaneous thoughts:

• The villagers are more concerned with equity as an abstract principle than their economic self-interest. People want to feel sure that programs and procedures are being conducted in a “fair” manner before they will evaluate the merits. I am sure this is indicative of larger sociological systems at play. This makes it difficult to market our program as just another business, since their are very real concerns about community strife over water, especially when combined with the next point.
• We are operating in a difficult area between the public and private sectors. Since water supply is generally regarded as a public good, it is hard for us to gain any support as a simple “take it or leave it” business selling a product. With the notable exception of water vendors, the villagers are accustomed to water supply initiatives coming from government or charitable NGOs. In neither case are they expected to contribute more than a token amount to the works. From my perspective, we are offering an appealing alternative to current options (for 80% of households, buying water), but either the status quo is not dire enough or our benefits are not clear enough to convince them to abandon their current outlook of water supply = subsidized program.
• Communication continues to be an issue. It is not clear to me how much the process of effectively conveying a message to the villagers depends on the actual information being communicated, or the source of the message. In other words, are they evaluating propositions on their own merits or on the perceived legitimacy of the speaker. Ideally they would mix the two and ultimately decide based on merits, but I am concerned that the discussions tend too much towards the latter and they would agree to something because it seems that important people are encouraging them to do so, and not because they can directly see the benefits themselves. To make this program a successful enterprise, above all the customers must adopt it because they know it is in their interest to do so.

I have spent the past few days on administrative tasks (detailing a roadmap for the next 5 weeks and business plan development (expect a full post on this soon), but have also made two trips to our project village, Achinakom, to survey prototype construction progress.

Including the first, community-sized system, we have four complete or almost-complete constructions.

From Prototypes 1-4

The operational community tank

From Prototypes 2-4

An operational cast-concrete tank

From Prototypes 2-4

A completed (but missing plumbing) cast tank

From Prototypes 2-4

And an almost-complete brick tank

The second and third prototypes share a similar design, but with different internal reinforcement mechanisms (rebar versus wrapped wire). A mold was custom-built for this purpose:

From Prototypes 1-4

Disassembled tank mold

Although the construction of these smaller tanks takes only a week of labor, they have dragged on in some cases for several months. Part of this is due to unavoidable delays with materials, transportation, and concrete curing, but the process can certainly be faster in the future.

Material procurement and transportation is another source for efficiency gains. Substantial construction materials are left over at a couple of the construction sites, in some cases up to 50% of the original quantity purchased. Because building has been going on in parallel, it has been cheaper to buy materials in bulk and move them to each site. However, due to inadequate planning, excess gravel, sand, iron rods, etc. has been set out for each construction and moved on-site, usually by hand. Not only is it a huge waste of labor to carry 50 extra cubic feet of sand 200 yards, but a substantial quantity is lost in transport each direction. We need to work out a more streamlined system for central material storage (ideally at our nearby office), budgeting, and accurate distribution.

Such accounting seems a little (ob|ex)sessive when there are more pressing issues to contend with, but accurate budgeting and efficient prototyping are the only ways to reproducibly lower our costs and hone in on the cheapest long-term construction we will have to build into any revenue/payback projections.

All this, of course, does not answer the question of how a sustainable business plan will actually be implemented with the community (the social and economic obstacles), allowing R4H to continue as an enterprise beyond the limits of our existing funds. Stay tuned.

After several long travel days from Cairo (and a day in Mumbai with other Starr fellow Cara), I arrived at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala. Since Tuesday, I have been catching up with our main team members here, Sylas and Dr. John, and working out a schedule to push Rainwater for Humanity forward towards sustainability.

With the fourth rainwater harvesting system (one community-sized and three individual household) nearing completion, there seems to have been a lot more progress on the construction and technical front than social and implementation side. The team has been running into roadblocks in pushing for any sort of “payback system” for future tanks. Since our money is finite (and being used up quickly), it is essential that we change this attitude fast. It is something we have not done a good enough job in communicating to the village in the past, as we continue to build prototype tanks with few strings attached (user groups have been contributing with labor and maintenance, but not directly to the cost of the tanks). Initial efforts to reach such agreements have been unsuccessful, mostly because we have not come prepared to present a program that actually appeals to the potential users.

I think the next few weeks will have us reevaluating our role, figuring out if we want to be providers of a service or an advisory group to the village users. The difference is between positioning ourselves as “marketing” a “product” to “clients” and providing assistance to a representative body which is better equipped to decide how to allocate resources. Right now, we are trying to do both, taking just enough guidance from village bodies to keep us from implementing the project in a sustainable manner, but not enough to actually know what they want and present them with a clear and beneficial plan. The current implementation agreement with the village is based around interim sharing of single household-sized tanks, an equitable solution between 100-150 households in the village, but one which puts further obstacles between true ownership and payback.

We will definitely have to mix the two approaches. I want to make our proposals more market-oriented (with the ultimate goal of social good), meaning that it is up to us to figure out how to make our product appealing. This question must be undertaken with the cooperation of the villagers, since they have very particular requirements and desires. At the same time, the work we have done so far and social cohesion of the village makes it difficult to act as a traditional firm, marketing a product to each individual customer. We will have to figure out a way (perhaps through agreements with the village committee and formation of user groups) to work within this existing social structure.

Sylas and I are going to Achinakom later today (by motorcycle?!) to check up on current progress in the village. Elsewhere on the calendar, Sophie and Zach (of the Brown student team) are arriving next week, and meetings with the R4H leadership team, the village committee, and village general body are scheduled for the week after.

Keep an eye out for updates (photos!) from the village and numbers from
market research.

Back from site update hiatus; it’s been a slow six months for updates in terms of R4H.

I am fortunate enough to be working full-time on Rainwater for Humanity this summer through the Starr fellowship, and after a month of remote work and planning, will be spending six weeks (from the end of July through August) on the ground in Kerala on the project.

My time at home has been spent on a variety of business planning, economic analysis, and overall project scheduling for the months ahead. The central objective for the fellowship is to put R4H on track towards economic and social sustainability. Not to abuse buzzwords, but right now we have a lot of the organizational framework in place and have begun to make a real impact on the ground. In the course of making the operations work (building systems, negotiating hard questions with skeptical villagers, no small task), we have not kept adequate focus on our most fundamental goal as an organization: to turn rainwater harvesting into an entrepreneurial activity with positive social, health, and economic outcomes.

As it stands, our activities so far have been given away freely to the villagers. Although this has been necessary to build trust and cement prototyping goals, it has unfortunately given the impression that we will continue to be a traditional charitable non-profit. Early attempts at establishing a “pay-back” program have led to disagreement and resistance from the community. What we need to do is take a much more serious look at the impact our efforts have had thus far and the economic situation of the villagers, and use this as a jumping-off point to convince them that our program will be of long-term benefit.

This is where I come in. By looking at our extensive survey data and experience in meetings with the R4H team and village committees, I will develop a “pay-back” plan (or set of potential plans) which is of long-term benefit to the users and can become economically sustainable for us. This will be done in close collaboration with all the stakeholders, since they must buy-in fully to it. By the end of August, we will have signed such an agreement with the next user group as a pilot trial
towards sustainability.

 

Apologies for the long delay; we have been frantically engaged in last tasks before Andrea and Eli leave on the 31st.

With the approval of Dr. Ramasamy and Dr. Thomas, we were able to hold a Rainwater for Humanity information session for interested MGU SES students. About 30 people showed up (unfortunately a lot of the first-year M.Sc. students were off campus at a meeting) and sat through our presentation (available here) and discussion session. Despite the students’ English proficiency, it is hard to successfully conduct a presentation without resorting to Malayalam. Differences in accent and diction mean that information is not always communicated effectively, and forcing people to use a language they are not entirely comfortable with makes them far more reticent to candidly ask questions and start a conversation, especially in a formal academic context. Luckily for us, Sylas went over some of our information in a clearer manner, and fielded questions from the audience in Malayalam. Dr. Thomas also said a few motivational words, hopefully highlighting to the students the important elements of social entrepreneurship and optimistic, perhaps lofty, student leadership.

We got back about 10 informational slips and several other students expressed interest, so we now have to figure out how to begin to engage them in the project. This will have to be a gradual process, but the upcoming impact baseline survey we will be administering to the system users in Achinakom will be a good opportunity for them to get involved. We hope to have a stable group of committed students here to work with Christina and Sylas in parallel with our Providence team, keeping in touch with email and conference calls throughout the year.

The University (along with the entire rest of Kerala) is closed next week for Onam festival holidays, so festivities were held here on the 25-26. We participated in a bunch of the traditional activities and managed to get pretty much no project work done. Environmental Sciences fared very well in the inter-departmental competitions, winning both pookkalam-making and a surprisingly enthusiastically-waged men’s tug-of-war. The next day saw a variety of party games in the department, as well as a traditional Onam banana leaf feast.

We can at least rest assured that our time spent informally with the students and faculty here have helped ingratiate ourselves into the department, building the local network necessary to keep this project going. Despite the frequent tea breaks, the students here are quite serious and dedicated, and their expertise in environmental systems, water quality and safety, and GIS is very valuable to incorporate into the project work.

We have been plodding along with various tasks the past couple days, continuing our consultations with local experts, monitoring the prototype build, and testing water samples at MGU. It’s a little hard to believe our time here is over half over; there is still far too much to do as schedules fall by the wayside.

Sunday was spent here at the university, preparing the first round of Escherichia coliform (e. coli) tests, making arrangements for the next few days, and planning for the long term. Although there have been some delays with the prototype construction (as is expected when trying something new) we hope to see it completed next week.

We took a day trip to the nearby city of Alappuzha on Monday for a couple of meetings. Our first stop was at the medical hospital to meet with Dr. Padmakumar, an expert on monsoon and water-related diseases. Meeting in his office on the third floor of a towering hospital complex (we got plenty of stares walking through the wards), he outlined some of the environmental and social factors contributing to health problems in Kuttanad. There are a wide range of independent contributors to disease aside from basic surface water pollution (from agriculture, houseboat tourism, sewage/waste). Although Kerala has been much-heralded as a model for low-cost, community-driven health care, Dr. Padmakumar was cautionary about the current state of regional care. He said education is less pervasive than it once was, and people are not as focused on preventative care, instead resorting to emergency visits (a well-publicized failure in the American system as well). Among water-borne diseases, Hepatitis A and E, Weils disease (lactospirosis), typhoid, cholera, and amoebiosis are endemic in Kuttanad. His hospital is a “tertiary” center, one of a handful of top-tier hospitals in the state responsible for emergency care and complicated cases referred from primary health centers and district hospitals. While rainwater cannot solve all the problems with dirty and mismanaged water sources in the region, he said it is a definite improvement for individual and small-scale access.

We then visited Ms. Sudha Soni, a prominent social activist who was one of Christina’s original contacts for her research in Kerala. We updated her on our project work and discussed some of her recent activities. She has been involved in a number of community-driven environmental- and water-related projects, and had some valuable advice about management of a shared water system. Her current project is the development of a household-level sustainable foods initiative, encouraging families to grow their own produce for nutritional benefits and energy savings. It faces many of the same social entrepreneurship obstacles we are dealing with, in particular encouraging people to take up a high level of responsibility and administration of a system they are unfamiliar with.

On our way back from the city we stopped by Kainkary village, hoping to diversify our perspective beyond Achinakom. As evinced by Christina’s water testing last year, this area of southern Kuttanad has significantly worse health problems than the north, and it showed. It is downstream of a couple major rivers which bring waste and pollution from the highlands of Kerala to the ocean. Although the families we talked to were aware of the importance of boiling drinking water, they admitted not being entirely thorough in the process and oftentimes drew water from the adjacent canal (others used nearby wells or cleaner, albeit distant, rivers). There was evidence of a onetime-extant municipal water supply line in some areas, but they reported all nearby taps were rarely supplied. As has been the case throughout, once we (Sylas) introduced ourselves, everyone was very outgoing and friendly. This ease of access is extremely important in order to build connections in other villages for purposes of project expansion.

Our coliform test results were unfortunately unsurprising, all sources measuring over 1100 (max. count per liter water). We will have to repeat the experiments with diluted samples to establish upper bounds for the counts. While boiling for a couple minutes will kill all these organisms, it is a bit jarring to see such results from people’s (inclusive of us, on occasion) drinking water. They also might be indications of other, more impervious, contaminates.

We visited Achinakom Tuesday morning to see the progress of the latest water-elimination plan. To reduce (eliminate!) the water permeating the prototype walls, preventing the foundational concrete from setting, they plan to segment off and pump out the two adjacent canals. This seems slightly over the line to overkill, but we are assured it is “no problem,” and the cost is nominal. In the meantime, the continuing layers of concrete being applied to the walls have entirely failed to harden in place and stop the leakage, so it is clear something must be done.

Back at the SES, we attended a “Fresher” (first-year Masters students) welcoming event. It started off with introductions as awkward as would be expected from such a thing, ranging from pure terror (some of the women) to over compensatory bravado (some of the guys). We got a brief shoutout from Dr. Thomas’ introduction (he and Dr. Ramasamy attend all departmental functions), which was just about the last English we heard for the following two hours. (Here follows speculation on the content of Malayalam heard:) It was at the very least reassuring (heartening?) to see the older students having so much fun calling up questions and mild insults (?) at the assembled newcomers, a reminder that the social order, at least among youth, is much the same across the world.

Our past few days have been spent touring around Kuttanad with Profs. Chris and Marijoan Bull, who were staying with us at MGU, getting acquainted with the project. Mr. Bull is on the engineering faculty at Brown and has been a source of technical and administrative support for Rainwater for Humanity. They left with great fanfare this morning (for Mumbai, continuing a conference tour around India).

The SES was quite happy to have him here, (because of the typical level of faculty involvement in India’s educational system, it adds a degree of legitimacy for us as well) and invited him to give an informal talk on his work Tuesday morning. After discussing the challenges in bridging technical solutions to problems with practical social and political implementation, a couple students in attendance responded with impressively critical questions. They pointed out the vastly disproportionate energy and resource consumption of the United States and its hypocritical stance on combating global climate change. Although we hear such arguments put forth by developing countries in abstract terms during WTO and UN negotiations, it was much more striking to hear from local students.

We visited Achinakom again in the afternoon to check on the continuing concrete foundation work. Although most adult men are at their jobs, the villagers continue to perform the majority of the labor.

A couple locals showed Sylas and us around the farther reaches (a couple kilometers away) of the village. The western edges are more isolated than the area around the project site, being further from the paved road accessible only by dirt (often muddy) paths. There were several houses being built, and Sylas explained that the building materials (impossible to transport from the road) were instead delivered by boat along the extensive canal system. We discussed the drinking water situation with a few families in this area, one of which currently draws from a rainwater harvesting tank. It is a 10,000 liter aboveground ferrocement tank fed from roof runoff (the standard design), but is currently being shared between five households. At an absolute minimum drinking and cooking water use of 20 liters per day per family during the dry season, this is vastly insufficient for their needs. They also highlighted the pitfalls of a shared system, mentioning that they alone performed the majority of the maintenance (despite it not being located on their land). Hopefully this shirking of responsibility will be less of a problem for us, with more families to draw from and a more active stake in the system.

With the excuse of vacation time for the Bulls, we joined the Kuttanad backwater tourists for the bulk of Wednesday. After meeting with the university vice-chancellor (the head of the school; the “chancellor” is nominally the President of Kerala), we went on a boat tour of Vembanad lake and some of the surrounding canals. I understand entirely why this region of Kerala is such a popular tourist destination (both domestically and internationally). They tour around the canals and lakes on massive houseboats, taking in the scenery and peaceful atmosphere. Unfortunately, tourism creates substantial environmental and economic problems in the region. Waste from the boats is discharged directly into the lake, further disturbing ecosystems reeling from decades of manipulation and neglect, and those whose livelihoods are dependent on the resources in the region (rice paddy workers, fishermen) see little of the money coming in from tourists.

Environmental science students are fantastic guides for nature trips. Sylas and Tom (another student who came) know about seemingly every insect, plant, and bird we encountered, and were able to explain all the environmental processes and human practices shaping the region. Seeing Kuttanad from the perspective of a tourist, however, only makes the case for improving local conditions through self-led social entrepreneurship more pressing.

System construction began yesterday morning, so we have spent much of the past 48 hours in Achinakom, hard at work observing the build and laboring with the workers. We arrived at about 9:30 Sunday morning to find three hired laborers and a couple men from nearby helping prepare the canal. Although they had erected a tent over the system, there was about 30 cm of water and mud at the bottom (none of the workers in the canal seemed to pay any mind to the unfortunate smell and high potential for pollution in the stagnant water).

They were first working to excavate the canal walls to the proper width and curvature. Because the soil is quite loose and damp, this was not too difficult with hand tools and sufficient perseverance. The only serious obstacle was a tree stump partially intruding on the site. Removal seemed quite daunting, but they continued undeterred with axes and were able to pry several hundred pound of wood free. A bamboo-walled divider was also inserted to section off the canal, with its interior filled with excavated dirt.

Although experienced labor is a must for construction of this magnitude, local ownership, as fostered through an active role in construction, is absolutely essential for sustainability and self-sufficiency. Whether prearranged or not, villagers began to gather in the morning and around 11:00, a couple dozen women started transporting the concrete materials to the site. Around 150 cubic feet of aggregate (small rocks) and 200 cubic feet of sand had been delivered to the closest accessible spot several hundred feet away from the canal on the other side of a house. Using small metal trays, the women began a bucket brigade to move the piles, a task that took the bulk of the day. Unfortunately, because of the language barrier, we had difficulty helping to coordinate the processes. With limited wheelbarrow and space availability, some time was spent moving materials unnecessarily. Regardless, the women (of all ages), teenagers, and few men (as well as us three) showed an amazing level of dedication and perseverance working on such a tedious task for hours on end.

A couple women from nearby household brought out banana leaves and a pot of communal lunch for all the villagers and laborers, and work ceased almost immediately. After eating and tossing away our “plates” (the benefits of biodegradability), the final canal draining began. The bulk of the water was removed out with a large gas-powered centrifugal pump, but once the bottom became too muddy the workers resorted to manual measures, using a bucket suspended between two strings to scoop and fling the mud out of the pit.

Once the base was sufficiently dry, they began to put down successive layers of river sand, aggregate, and concrete mixture. Laying concurrently, they covered the foundation in about an hour. The women and other villagers began another operation passing these materials down to the laborers in the pit, while a couple other teenagers mixed the concrete and carted it over. Water continued to seep into the pit the whole time through the floor (at a rough rate of 10 l/m) so pumping and scooping continued intermittently. They also dug a small drain hole in the middle to collect infiltrated water for pumping.

Work continued until about 10:00 (a florescent lamp was brought out), when the foundation slab was finished, a final round of pumping was completed, and everyone headed home.

Brown engineering professor Chris Bull and his wife Maryijoan had arrived earlier that afternoon, but we did not see them until the morning. They will be staying here until Thursday to become acquainted with and support our work at MGU and in Kuttanad. After outlining some of our short- and long-term plans over breakfast, we headed to Achinakom with George Abe (of the CWRDM), Dr. Thomas and Dr. Ramasamy for their first inspection of the construction. The School of Environmental Science has made a substantial commitment to this project, and it is reassuring to see support from a high level in the department. All studies and projects under the auspices of a university here are typically subject to very close oversight and approval from professors every step of the way.

The second day of construction saw the beginnings of a concrete coat on the canal walls. This was premixed with water (1:16 cement:sand) and a small amount of soil stabilizer liquid, and applied via trowel. The foundation started to set, but water was still being removed periodically.

There was less participation on Monday, primarily because the men (and many of the women) have their own jobs to do. As we hope to engage women in the construction process so they can begin to build the systems more autonomously, we encouraged Suma to gather people to come watch the concrete application. A small group of village women gathered on the side of the canal and observed the work with a fair amount of timidity. Although they are interested in learning some skills and have expressed a willingness to work on scaling up the project in Achinakom, they are apprehensive about performing some of the work. Heavy-duty tasks like cement mixing and and digging are typically relegated to men. We will see how this process progresses, but hopefully it will be possible to incorporate their work as much as is physically possible while scaling back the necessity of hired laborers and professionals (although some masonry assistance will probably be inevitable for the foreseeable future).

Plans are to finish the side wall concrete tomorrow (Tuesday), let it set on Wednesday, and lay the concrete reinforcement on Thursday. We will hopefully spend some more time in Achinakom tomorrow with Chris Bull and Marijoan, meeting more of the villagers on the Western side who will not be the primary users of this system.

Our past few days in Kuttanad have been quite productive. After two more trips to Achinakom, consultations with a few involved parties in the area, and some more fieldwork, we are getting a good grip of the situation on the ground. We have also become more acquainted with M.G. University and its students.

Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Ramasamy and Dr. Thomas graciously arranged a small meeting with us and about 30 environmental science students (Masters and Doctorate). Although admittedly a bit awkward at first, we were able to introduce ourselves, talk about Rainwater for Humanity, and field questions from the students. They seemed particularly impressed with the initiative shown by Christina and the rest of our Providence team in starting such a project. Despite high levels of social awareness, student-driven groups so active on issues outside their studies are quite uncommon here. We had to explain several times that all motivation is provided by the student team (with professors acting only in an advisory role), and that such work is undertaken entirely extracurricularly. They were noticeably excited by this prospect, and when we polled the crowd on interest in participating in the project nearly everyone (after some hesitation) raised their hands.

We are working to find students here who can continue as local partners, helping Mr. Sylas and Dr. John. Ideally, much of the work could be done by students here rather than in Providence. Someone with the time and initiative here is much better equipped to make a difference than we are, already speaking Malayalam and being 8000 miles closer to the region.

Wednesday morning we met with Mr. Roy George, a civil engineer here at M.G.U. He was a main source for advice in adopting our proposed design to meet local conditions, primarily in adding a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) shell over the canal basin instead of a flexible plastic membrane. Soil conditions in Achinakom are quite difficult, with a variety of complex environmental factors at play. The project area lies below sea level, and is wetland dominated by loose clay soil. Typical building practices use a rigid structure to withstand differential settlement in the soil and pressure from the groundwater.

We also drove to Achinakom and met the mason in charge of the project. He outlined (in Malayalam) the dimensions and construction procedure of the system, all accepted ferrocement building practices. He has substantial experience building these systems (although above-ground tanks are standard around here), so we will follow his expertise. We want to make sure all the right questions are asked to substantiate the technical aspects of the project, but in the end we need to defer to others in construction specifics.

In the evening, all three of us joined some of the department students in a friendly cricket match behind the department (they had to teach us the rules), and some (extremely milky) tea at the nearby tea stand.

We finished up our questionnaire for the future system users. By gathering benchmark data about current water use patterns, economic activity, health issues, and community involvement, we hope to track the effects of the first prototype system. Interviewing (with Mr. Sylas) starts tomorrow!

We flew in to Kochi on August 1 (Andrea and Eli from Delhi, Christina from Hong Kong), met Mr. Sylas (a Ph.D student in environmental science) at the airport and made the two hour drive to Mahatma Gandhi University outside Kottayam.

After breakfast the next morning, we drove Achinakom village, the project site, with Mr. Sylas, Dr. Thomas (former director of MGU School of Environmental Science), Prof. John, and Dr. Ramasamy (current School director). We sat in on a general body meeting (all in Malayalam; we were pretty lost but had some translation) with the future system users, local committee members, and us from the university. Although construction deadlines are approaching, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed, with plenty of joking and smiling.

This was followed by a local committee meeting with the two Panchayath (local government body) members from Achinakom, four village representatives, and Suma (the women’s self-help group secretary). They set out a construction schedule for the system over the next three weeks, with material delivery later this week and building beginning on the ninth. It is expected to take twelve days to finish construction and allow all concrete to cure. They also agreed to open a bank account for project expenses in the name of “Rainwater for Humanity – Achinakom.” Suma and a Panchayath member will be signatories.

We all walked over to the system site. Taking advantage of local conditions, it is situated in an abandoned canal, approximately 2m deep, 5m wide, and 20m long. They have divided it in half to use one side for the storage tank and the other for drainage. Local engineers have advised that a silpaulin membrane tank will be unable to withstand existing hydrostatic pressure from the (very high) water table, so a rigid tank lining is required. They plan to mortar the sides of the canal (simultaneously pumping out groundwater) and then build a reinforced concrete shell. As per our proposal, there will be an elevated wall around the outside of the system (sloped 5°) and corrugated sheet metal roof (most likely galvanized iron).

When completed, the system will store about 120,000 liters of water (entirely contained within the subsurface canal). This will provide 16 neighboring families (approximately 72 people) with water over the course of the year. The primary desire is to have 20 liters a day available per family during the dry season (from December to April, about 38,400 liters). The current estimated cost is Rs. 135,000 (about US$2,700), and local masons estimate a lifetime of 50 years. Compared to Rs. 0.2 per liter of drinking water from private vendors (a common source during dry months, when well water is unusable), this is a factor of ten savings over the system lifetime.

Before building begins, we plan on gathering first-person background information on the social and technical impact of the system. We will interview villagers, visit the local health clinic, and test water samples from current sources to learn about current water use practices and issues. This baseline information will be crucial to measure Rainwater for Humanity’s impact on concrete health metrics. We also plan to meet with consulting engineers at MGU and the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM) and local masons in order to understand how local construction techniques have adapted to deal with difficult building conditions.

On a lighter note, we were able to stop by a supermarket yesterday afternoon and finally managed to find some plain, bland, non-spicy food. Corn Flakes for dinner was a welcome break from dosa and chappati.

Please comment below if you have any questions or feedback! We are especially on the lookout for affordable, quick on-site water testing kits for e. coli. Our current lab procedures are rather tedious and time-consuming.