Rainy Season and water filter

As I might have mentioned, this is the rainy season. We had a fair amount of steady rain on Monday and Tuesday last week to fully saturate the soil. On Wednesday it rained hard most of the day causing flooding in the valleys and coastal areas. The national stadium area was flooded enough to move an event to the following week.

I’m near the top of a mountain so I don’t have to worry much about flooding. Some of the storm drains and streams in the area overflowed and washed over the road, but nothing serious.

The route I traveled to St. George’s to attend a Peace Corps meeting on Friday didn’t have any major problems. On the trip back along the south eastern road I noticed about six slides covering at least half of the road – mainly slide dirt and rocks along with trees that had toppled onto the roadway – two days after the heavy rain. Facebook also reminded me that there were slides along my road in Dominica one year ago, although those were cleaned up in less than a day. Grenada has more roads and I’m presuming other places had more issues.

None of these were really very serious, just a slight issue for traffic. Something like the “beware falling rocks” signs we have in some parts of the states.  Being in the middle of a crowded bus I couldn't get any good pictures.

Rain down the street

More rain

This was one of the drains that washed over
Our tap water comes from a river just up the hill and the system is fairly old. We have been told that we will get a new system, but for now we wait. During heavy rains we might notice that our water is brown before they turn off the system.

Not exactly water for pasta.  Maybe I could think I'm having whole wheat pasta :-?

We can be without water for several days depending on the weather. People store up water for this eventuality. I’m lucky in that I’ve got a large water tank. My water was off from Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning.

My water tank is off to the right

Water filter


Even under normal conditions the water supply has particulates in the water. I know this because Peace Corps provides ceramic water filters for the volunteers. I had a similar filter in Ghana for the borehole water.

This water filter is much larger than the one in Ghana.  This holds maybe 15 liters

The normal quality of the tap water means that in the best of times I need to clean my filter every other time I fill the top. I typically let my filtered water go down to near the end before I fill the top portion. This allows me to completely fill the top and use the entire length of the filter. It takes less than six hours for most of it to filter through.

If I would kept the bottom topped up then I would be adding a little water each time or so and only using to lower part of the filter. This would then clog up the bottom third rather quickly and I would need to be cleaning the filter more often.

Looking inside the top.  Time to clean the filter

Yes, this is supposed to be white

That's a little better

OK, now I can filter some more water.
Each volunteer has their own method for water filtration. I suppose some people become acclimated to the water and skip the filter. Some people might supplement the filtered water with the bottled variety.

Everyone has tap water on Grenada although from the different water subsystems, some are better than others. In Ghana volunteers had tap water, river water, rain water, (open) well water, and borehole water. Borehole water was typically pretty good.

My water supply in Ghana

This is my second Peace Corps tour and both times I’ve had water filters. I presume most African volunteers and those in the Americas have water filters but perhaps some in Eastern Europe and the Far East might not need them. Peace Corps does care about the health of the volunteers.

I’m glad I have mine, particularly during this rainy season. That and the water tank.
400 gallons.  Enough for a small African village.

Love always,
John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yam harvesting

Image
Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crop...
Read more

Pito – brewed millet

Image
Corn, rice, and millet are the common grains grown in my region of Ghana. All three are used food, but millet is also used to produce the local brew – pito, or daa in the local language. “N nyu daa” - in Dagaree means “I drink pito.” There are several varieties of millet grown here – a red and white varieties have loose heads. These are used for pito and other foods. There is also a smaller seed variety with a tight head of seeds that is mainly used for porridge. (Don't have a picture of that variety yet.) In all varieties millet grows on a stalk with the grain head at the top of the stalk. White and red millet in the field Two bundles of while millet to be used for seed next season Converting a grain to alcohol is a common practice in various cultures. It provides a way to capture and digest the nutritional value of the grain. In some places, like Germany and the beer brewing monks, the making a beer was a way to preserve the harvest. In Ghana the millet is ...
Read more

Ghana Archery and Travel to Tamale

Image
Ghana Archery Roger and I were walking to see a man in the community early last week and he happened across an arrow head. It was a long thin metal piece that would be attached to then end of a shaft. That got Roger talking about archery and got me thinking about another blog post. He explained how the arrow worked while we walked and promised to show me a bow and arrow when we got back to his house. He talked about the old times when they made poison. The process involved collecting plants and such things and placing them in a pot which is buried for a year. The poison was used on animals and people in the ancient times. That got me thinking about the information that has been and is being lost in the community from the older generation. Yesterday, I was sitting talking with some of the older men and they were talking about how the grandfathers could dig up the roots and such to make medicine for a variety of illnesses. They told me that the knowledge and practice of m...
Read more