Did You Remember Your Costco Card?

This morning we were off to a relatively late start and missed our Loa guides Q and Malakai. Fortunately, because the community is so close-knit all it takes is a spoken name with an inquisitive inflection and you get a friendly finger pointing you in the right direction. We drove up the road and found machete-wielding Malakai ready to take us to the town's water source. Cutting steps into the soft, steep jungle slopes for his clumsy companions, he led us to a stunning, hidden waterfall which was the source of water for his village. Malakai makes this trek barefoot on a weekly basis, while we spent a good part of the walk desperately grasping for vines and thorny trees to catch our balance. Deborah’s grand finale included a graceful slide on her backside down the last few feet of the trail.

From the source, we walked as far as we could along the above-ground portion of the distribution line, stopping to look at the “air relief valves” or simply put, holes drilled into the pipe with a piece of bamboo stuck in them to keep the water from geysering out. Malakai shared his concerns of the system with us: the source is often clogged with debris during rainstorms, and the distribution pipe is frequently damaged during Department of Public Works “road repairs”.

After taking samples from the source and the tank and GPSing the distribution line, we headed back to the Mission for lunch and paperwork. In the afternoon we took a trip to Sunny’s “Costco”, a warehouse-style wholesaler of canned foods and non-perishables. We purchased bleach to sterilize our sample results, and crackers and soda for our missionary friends who were up half the night being ill. (Given their miserable status, we have become even more fond of our bottled “Island Chill” water and have placed an order for a second case with Sunny).

Sampling Update: All Vunikura samples have tested positive for the confirmation of E. Coli. We are now running the Loa source and tank samples, and a full set of Mission tap water (fingers crossed).

Although there are virtually NO beaches with sand in this area (~sob~), we found a small stretch of grey sand outside of Sunny’s place. We grabbed a couple bag-fulls and are drying them in front of our rooms with the intention of performing a sieve analysis to determine if the grain size distribution is acceptable for slow sand filters.

Now it’s time for Justin’s first capoeira class (afro-brasilian martial art) from Deborah, before our samosa dinner (yumyum!).