Provision of Water at Mbaaseny Primary School

In 8 years of working with Community Schools in the Arusha Region we have not yet found one that has adequate and safe drinking water. Mbaaseny Primary School is better off than most in that the region gets at least some rain every year and the small volcanic ponds that make the area so beautiful often hold at least some water.

But pond water is completely undrinkable owing to its very high content of mineral salts. Cattle can drink it only after heavy rains. At other times it is toxic.

Water was available to the school from a pipe over two kilometres away or from a river five kilometres from the school. The water from the pipe is erratic and flows only one day per week in the dry season.

Our first attempt to provide water to the school was to connect the pipe to the school and store water in drums but then the water dried up completely as villagers made illegal connections to the line.

We were then left with two alternatives. To dig a well for the provision of water for washing and the gardens and to build a water tank for the collection of rain water.

Fig 1. The Well

At one stage the villagers had dug a pit that was intended for use as a pit toilet for teachers but the toilet had never been constructed. As we were constructing another toilet for teachers near a new teacher’s house we decided to dig further until we found permanent water. We dug down (by hand through soft rock) until we reached a depth of 20 meters and found a good flow of water. The water is salty and no doubt contains some pathogens but it is adequate for washing and the gardens.

We capped the well with concrete and a lockable iron hatch so that children would not fall in. The well is now in daily use and saves hundreds of hours and the exhaustion of children carrying water from far away.

But drinking water was still necessary and for a school that will has 300 students and will soon have 500 we needed a lot of it.

Figure 2 Mbaaseny before we started work. The bank in front of the roofed building was eroding and it was there we built the tank.

When it rains at Mbaaseny it is in torrents and there is the potential to capture a lot of water from the school roofs. When the foundations for the school were originally set they were laid in a slope that was collapsing and there was danger of the school settling and the walls cracking or at worst, collapsing.

The earth bank needed substantial reinforcing so we decided to combine this work with a huge water tank. We built a solid concrete block wall along the slope of the bank and continued it out and around until we had constructed a tank that is roughly kidney shaped. It will hold over 150,000 litres.

Figure 3 The water tank under construction

Then the recent credit crisis hit and our funds dried up before we could cap the tank and install the guttering and plumbing. As the rainy season drew near we were very concerned that we could not collect water for the following dry season. Then two of our volunteers came to our aid and we were able to complete the tank before the end of the rainy season.

During all this work we have had the usual problems of stolen materials. Avaricious tradesmen that need constant supervision to ensure engineering standards and villagers who do not show up to help with the work. With a water tank this size you cannot make any mistakes. A broken wall could be a disaster. To say this was an easy project would be a fantastic prevarication.

Figure 4 Installing the guttering

But now Mbaaseny Primary School will never be short of water unless the teachers start selling water from the locked tap to the villagers which is a common occurrence. We have no way to supervise this unless we place a volunteer permanently in the school. Even then it has occurred late at night.

The real value of this project is to provide water to the children but importantly it demonstrates how water can be collected from school roofs.

It is a surprise to many that the simple and inexpensive method of collecting water from roofs is rarely seen in Tanzania. Less than one roof in 10,000 will collect water. instead women and children will walk long distances to get inferior water or buy it from merchants who sell it from the backs of overloaded donkeys.

Figure 5 The tank prior to completion. A wall has been built around the top edge to prevent children falling. The tank has also been rendered.

This is technology transfer and village development in action. We are now to see if villagers will take to the idea which is easy for them to implement or if the women and children will still be sent on the laborious and life shortening task of collecting water.