A Blog Post by Matthew Cole: The Rains and Surveys!

Hey friends. Apologies for the delay in blog posts, it’s been an incredibly busy last month here in Wamba. First, on October 5th, the Wamba Catholic Hospital celebrated 50 years of service to the Northern Kenyan community with a large celebration that included the deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto (more on life at the hospital at a later date). Then, here at TSP we have begun surveying our potential drill sites for the year 2019. And to top all of this, the rainy season has come full swing which has thrown everything into chaos!

While Samburu County is incredibly dry and hot, it is not what one would classify as a desert (the only true deserts in Kenya are found even further north of here, closer to the borders of Ethiopia and Somalia.) It does rain here, albeit only for a short period of time throughout the year. When I arrived here in July, it became very apparent that is does rain here, even as the sun beats oppressively down on your face. You look around and there are gullies, valleys and dry riverbeds that dot the landscape. But even with this geomorphic evidence, it can still seem impossible that it could rain. But let me tell you, when it rains, it truly pours, and it can seemingly come out of nowhere. Clouds descend down from the mountain next to town and then heavens open up. The sudden influx of water is far too much for the dry earth to absorb and thus most of the water flows across the landscape in tremendous force, enough to carry away cars in some places. You seek shelter, wait it out and respect the ferocity of mother nature. Then, almost as soon as it commenced, it ends and the ground rapidly dries up as if nothing ever occurred. The only evidence is a few inconspicuous puddles and a plethora of underground dwellers seeking shelter above ground from flying ants and worms to scorpions and centipedes. For a few hours, life returns to normal and everyone attempts to complete their outdoor tasks before the next onslaught of water

Now, as for the surveying, many people have been asking me how exactly we find water here at TSP. TSP has been working with a hydrogeologist from Nairobi ever since its inception, and due to my geological education, I was able to assist him. The first step in locating a water source is quite intuitive. One must examine the landscape and look for clues as to if there is water underneath the ground. A dry riverbed is a good indicator, but is not always available. So you look for tall trees and large anthills as both of these indicators need a consistent source of water to reach a large stature. Now, after finding a few locations that meet these parameters, it is time to find a specific point. Since TSP wells are equipped with a hand pump, the wells generally cannot go much deeper than 70 metres. Thus, finding the right spot for the well can be a matter of a few feet, as the water table level can fluctuate wildly in a small area. To measure this level 10s of metres underground, a technique called electrical resistivity tomography is used. For any of my geological/scientific friends reading this, I can give you the full details on how it works in person. But in layman’s terms, by sending a constant electrical current underground and measuring how resistive the ground is, we can get an idea of what is underneath it. For example, water rich soil will be less resistive than solid bedrock, so an area of low resistance above an area of high resistance can be interpreted as an aquifer forming from a fracture in the bedrock underneath. While most times we can find water, sometimes the place we are in is too dry for us to drill a shallow well. Unfortunately, this was the case at one of the sites we surveyed, and one of the hardest moments so far was giving a sense of hope to a this community, only to tell them that in the end, we could not help them. We took a break from surveying this week as the rains really interfere, but we will back at it again next week and I will be sure to tell you all about it!