Woleyatina: Data collection for water and sanitation projects

My village has a number of wells, in various stages of decomposition. Some have enclosures around them, most do not. These wells are vulnerable to contaminants of all kinds, ranging from organic (bacteria, animal droppings) to inorganic (dust, sand, acid rain maybe). There's a good chance that some of the more common village illnesses, such as diarrhea, are due to unclean water.

My work partner and I spent my first couple of months in village sending out letters to different NGO's specializing in water and sanitation, in the hopes of receiving funding for a project. We're not sure yet what exactly the project will consist of. Depending on the level of contamination, it might be a simple matter of installing metal covers on the wells. Other more complex options include building robinets and waterpumps. Everyone wants a robinet, with good reason: pulling water is hard! But people also want the robinets because it's a status symbol: look how modern we are! Thing is, robinets and pumps require a substantial amount of maintenance and financial investment over a long period of time. I'm not convinced that my villagers have that level of investment at this point. In any case, these projects will involve causeries and trainings on how to treat drinking water for safe consumption. These behavior change activities are the most difficult, but they often have the greatest impact on overall health once they are adopted.

Some of the NGO's asked for data and pictures of available water structures. On September 15th and 16th, my work partner and I visited all the wells in all three villages. We measured the depth of each well and the depth of the water, took pictures, and took notes pertaining to overall cleanliness. We visited 15 wells in all!

A well in Dassilami

What did we find out? On a positive note, Dassilami Soce has a decent water supply, most wells are functional, and the water is potable(ish). This isn't really the case in Boutilimite and Saroudia, which have a higher proportion of dry or abandoned wells; I was told that several wells gave "unsweet" water, which could either mean that the water is salty or that it is contaminated in some way. With the help of WAAME-USAID, we're hoping to run some tests on water from various village wells, so I'll have more answers soon.

Here's a disturbing case study. Unfortunately, this is well I draw water from every morning. Early that week, I'd been told that the inside of the well had "fallen", or "collapsed"(translating from Mandinka is hard). I'm not sure what happened, but it does look like the bottom half of the well has lost its outer layer. For a while, we all had to go to another well to fetch water, which was way too far away--if you're lugging two 20 litter buckets full of water. So while the well was in disuse, here's what my work partner and I found: