Day 17: Troubleshooting

Day 17: Troubleshooting in Yua

Today we continued troubleshooting on what could possibly be wrong with solar panel-to-pump connection. We pulled the pump out of the borehole and tried to consult the manual and fiddle with the wiring but nothing seemed to work. It seems that the solar panels are hooked up properly so we are assuming there is either a problem with the pump itself or with the controller that sends power to the pump. I have to say today was a little discouraging as we hoped to have water flowing by now. We have a number of technicians meeting us at the solar plaza tomorrow to take a look. Hopefully tomorrow we will get it all sorted out.

While Matt was in Bolga gathering technical support, I had the opportunity to take a bike ride into Burkina Faso to take a look at a dry season farm that is in operation there. It was really quite a sight. They really have an ingenious irrigation system worked out there which involved pumping water from the river and flooding a series of irrigation ditches one at a time. They control which ditch is flooded by placing and removing dirt barrier walls at the entrance to each channel. It is a great system if you happen to be farming near a river. 

Hopefully the drip system will be way more efficient for those who have less access to large amounts of water. After seeing the farm in operation and explaining how drip was different, I think the people of Yua are ready to try drip and they have a better idea of what to expect. They have been having a little trouble coming to terms with the face that we are going to be poking pinhole sized holes in a PVC pipe and watching water trickle out. They were skeptical at best but James (a Yua community member who has been helping out a lot with the projects) said today that though they have never seen anything like what we are talking about doing, they are ready to try. Good enough for me. Tomorrow we build!

Kate