Pictures of the implementation trip!

Hi everyone!

Arrived safely in San Francisco this evening so I'm finally uploading some pictures of the trip! See below for all the activity in Buca Bay...

	Thomas, Maggie and Adrienne on the way to Savusavu in a tiny plane (see the captain behind them)...
	Beautiful morning in Buca Bay
Construction Prep Work:
	Hiking in Vunikura with Williame and Arone
	Jesoni showing us major distribution line leaks in Loa
	Trenching in Buca
Construction (!):
	Tying up the galvenized steel pipe in Vunikura for the bridge crossing
	Constructing pipe in Buca
	Sifting sand in Loa
Water Quality Work:
	Checking out the Slow Sand Filter at the Mission at Natuvu Creek
	Taking Water Quality Samples with Adrienne
Group Photos:
	Travel team with workers in Loa
	Team with Vunikura workers
	With Buca Water Committee at the farewell party for the two of us leaving early (didn’t get a group shot yet)…
Having some fun!
	Volleyball on Sunday night...
	Dancing at farewell party in Buca
	Work it!
	Adrienne, Kim, and Shakeel with the lovely garlands the Buca ladies made for us
Moce Fiji!

Design for a year and then Improvise for a week...

Bula! This is Kelly (i.e. keli keli) posting... and the title is a bit of an exaggeration- but pretty close to our experience! We are learning firsthand that we can design a perfect project in the U.S. but when you actually get on-site, you have to adjust a bit. Luckily we have been able to add to our project scopes, rather than downsize them! All the villagers are working so hard that we are working faster and more effectively then we imagined. In Vunikura, 400 more meters of pipe will be installed then we planned; in Loa, all the leaks from the tank to the village and in the village will be fixed. In Buca, the entire in-village distribution system has been dug up by the extremely strong and capable Buca villagers- so instead of just replacing the main 4-inch pipeline, we are replacing the entire system! However, this has meant some late night and early morning design sessions to try to route the new system in a effective and clean way. This week was a big week in Buca- after a wonderful pipe cleaning and gluing workshop by Shakeel on Thursday, we actually started putting some pipes (and tees- angled correctly!) into the ground on Friday morning. It was incredibly gratifying to see how much the villagers appreciated the pipes and the workshop, and how they were all working together on Friday to put the pipe in the ground. Hopefully next week the projects will start to be on 'cruise control'- and we will merely be acting as quality control. This method of working is great for everyone- and we are not merely giving Buca a new pipeline- we have the opportunity to teach them skills so they can give themselves a pipeline. Additionally, they are invested in the pipeline and know exactly the location of every lateral, so they can troubleshoot and repair future problems themselves.

In Savusavu yesterday we ordered even more pipe and materials from our hardware guy Gulabdas- and we are confident that we have enough time to finish the expanded projects by the end of the implementation trip!

I will be leaving Tuesday morning and will be back in the Bay Area in the afternoon, so I can finally upload photos of the construction and the villagers, along with photos of our lodgings. I will miss all of the people in Buca Bay who have been so welcoming! I might even miss the dinner plate sized spiders, cockroaches, moths and leaf bugs...(ok, slight exaggeration on the size- except the leaf bug- we saw a leaf bug as large as my forearm!!)...

See everyone at home soon (Sototale)!

Kim's Ramblings

Sunday, August 15

So we finally have internet access and wanted to update everyone at home regarding our project. First of all, this implementation is going great - it is like night and day compared to my previous implementation trip in India. The villagers are very excited about the work and our partner NGO really came through for us regarding communicating with the villagers as well as helping us sort out many logistical issues.

Shakeel and I arrived last Monday (we are 19 hours ahead of you folks back in the States), and we pretty much hit the ground running. The rest of the team had already been here for a week at that point and had loads to bring us up to speed on. Although we had spent a great deal of time planning for this trip back home, there were alot of scope issues that needed to be dealt with. For instance, Buca Village had dug up their entire village, exposing their existing distribution system. Originally, we had only planned on replacing the existing 2" pipeline with 4" pipeline, but after evaluating the site conditions, we determined that we should replace their entire distribution system. There were just too many unknowns with the existing laterals; they could be potential sources of contamination and since we were replacing the existing line anyway, we decided to go the extra mile (not quite literally but close) and create a water tight system in the village. Not only did we decide to replace the leaky laterals, but we closed the loop on the distribution system to improve their level of service (a shout out to WRK on that one).

It is one thing to plan a system on paper, but another thing entirely to build one, so this is where things started getting exciting. Shakeel held a few workshops on PVC pipeline construction, and I think some of us learned as much as the villagers regarding how to actually build a system in the field. As the week wore on, we all spent time in each of the villages to take part in tricky parts of the construction or for community meetings. By the end of the week, most of us were based primarily in one village to provide consistency, and Kelly, Adrienne and I were spending alot of our time in Buca Village - the villagers have taken to this very well and even embrace the idea that their project is being overseen primarily by the 'lewas' (the ladies).

The bridge crossing in Vunikura Village was a pretty amazing feat as well. We managed to install a galvanized steel pipeline underneath the bridge to act as a carrier pipe for a new 2" distribution line. This pipe replaced the existing river crossing that washes out during the rainy season. It was a tricky bit of construction, especially to ensure that everything was done as safely as possible, but we managed it. Next week we hope to finish up the section of new pipe installation between the tank and the village (~600 meters through the jungle). On Friday, we finished some pipeline repairs in Loa Village; the final repairs will take place on Monday and we start building the biosand filters there next week.

We have also been taking water samples at the sources and taps for the villages. The coliscan and the H2S methods seem to be working great, although our 'laboratory' area is directly adjacent to where we sleep and the aroma drifts into our sleeping quarters (not the best smell to wake up to). We visited the existing slow sand filter at the Mission near our project site to observe their operations and maintenance procedures, as well as to see if we could improve our existing slow sand filter design (building slow sand filters are on our agenda for Vunikura and Buca during future implementation trips). This was extremely interesting and I think we learned alot in terms of how we can optimize our proposed systems.

As far as the team, we are all in good spirits despite the fact that all of us except Kelly (knock on wood) have had some level of stomach discomfort since we have been here. Every one is working extremely hard and we are all getting along great, which is terrific since we spend every waking moment together!

That's all for now. Things are going great and we are on schedule to complete our construction in all of the villages prior to our departure. The people are amazing - the villagers are so thankful for our help and are very kind people. They are also a very sharing group - always trying to provide us with tea, kava, coconuts, etc. At the village meetings, they repeatedly thank us for our help and it is really heartwarming to be able to help such a wonderful group of people. Personally, I'm learning loads (if anyone ever needs help with a PVC system, I'm your gal), and so far this has been an absolutely amazing experience.

Friday the 13th!

Bula everyone, Shakeel here. Apologies for the infrequent posts, but we've been spending all day out in the villages at the work, and haven't had much chance to go where we can connect. We're in Savusavu today on a rest day, and so you'll see a few updates from the team soon...

Our team is having a great time. We're working crazy hard, learning a lot, building relationships, and sharing the highs and lows - with the lows mostly involving cold showers and supersized arthropods, although we consider the various giant 6- and 8-legged furry creatures we're sharing our rooms with more as mascots and compatriots than adversaries.

Anyway, last Friday, the 13th, was a big day for all three villages. On Friday it felt to me that all of our prep work, including the work our team has done over the last several months back home, the frantic prep work here in Buca Bay, the organizing, the materials purchasing, planning with the village residents, training sessions, redesigns, and re-redesigns; all of that all really fell into place. In Buca the villagers installed the first length of the 4-inch main village distribution pipe, in Loa the villagers built the three worst in-village pipeline fixes, and in Vunikura we routed their new supply pipeline up over a particularly tough angle along a jungle hillside, both before and after a crazy (in a good way) tough awesome river crossing.

The residents of each of the villages are on board, working hard, and having fun themselves building their new water infrastructure. They've caught on and jumped on the work so quickly that we're really starting to feel the momentum building. We'll post photos and details about the projects in the next few posts.

Moce (goodbye) for now!

Implementation: Week One

Bula (Hello) everyone!

We finally had a moment to update the blog! Things have been busy in Fiji on our implementation trip as we prepare for construction. During the week, we get up at 6:15am and work until 6pm, with a short break for lunch. After dinner, we have group meetings to discuss our day's findings and plan for construction. We were glad to have a rest day yesterday, because we had no time this last week to have some down time and recuperate.

We (Adrienne, Maggie, Thomas, and myself- Kelly) arrived on Monday afternoon (August 2) after a long long day of traveling- we took four planes and each one seemed successively smaller... the smallest plane held about 12 people and was a little frightening! But it provided a nice aerial tour of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu on our trip from Suva to Savusavu. When we arrived in Savusavu, Amini from the Dream Machine Foundation was there to greet us- which was great! We stopped at the grocery store for bottled water, got lunch, went to the hardware store, and then headed to Buca Bay on the bumpy, unpaved Hibiscus Highway.

On Day 2, Tuesday (August 3), we woke up to a large breakfast prepared by Ase, who is cooking for us at the Dream Machine Foundation House. We headed to the Mission at Natuvu Creek to meet Dr. Anibal and his wife Adrianna, as well as Lina and some of the nurses. The Mission has allowed us to set up our office and lab in a large room on the bottom floor.

After the Mission, we headed to Vunikura, one of the villages we are working in. In Vunikura we are rerouting the pipe from their storage tank- currently it just passes unprotected over a river, merely held up by sticks. We are going to pass the pipe under a bridge using galvanized steel pipe casing with metal clamps, which can attach to the bridge's I-beams. [Hopefully this fix will mean they won't have to repair their pipe every time there is a large storm. Currently large flows down the river wash out the pipe, leaving the village without water for up to a week. ] We were impressed to see that all the men in the village were working on digging (keli-keli) a trench for the new pipe!

After lunch, we headed to Buca, where we will be replacing their leaking main distribution line with a larger pipe. We met with some men from the village's water committee, Asaeli, Wame, Mosese, and Lasaga, and were glad to see that the men in Buca were digging as well! The villages have been waiting a year since Deborah and Justin's assessment trip, and it seems that they are anxious to replace their old pipeline.

That night, we headed to a community meeting in the village of Loa, where we will be repairing broken sections of pipe and installing 3 small biosand filters. We told the villagers our plans and asked for their input, with Amini translating. They seemed glad we were there to help with their largest leaks.

On Day 3, Wednesday (August 4th), we headed back to Vunikura and hiked up to their water source with Williame (headman) and Arone (pipeline guide), where we took water samples, then walked along their pipeline to the tank (stopping for new coconut water, or Bu, fresh from the tree along the way!) for more water samples.

In the afternoon we headed to Buca, where we identified all 45 laterals coming off their main water distribution line. The laterals were installed piece-meal and most are not glued, causing numerous leaks. Additionally, there are septic tanks right next to many of the laterals, so there is the potential that leachate could travel into their lines. We hope to reorganize the laterals from the distribution line, provide glue to stop obvious leaks, and set them away from septic tanks as much as possible.

On Day 4, Thursday (August 5), we had a tour of Vunikura's village water line and taps, where we identified the leaks in the village and took water quality samples at 5 taps. Many of the taps are broken off, or are ill-connected. We hope to replace or improve many of these connections to help with water pressure problems in the village; low pressure in the pipeline means less water coming out of taps and also means that septic leachate below ground can travel into the pipe easier.

In the afternoon, we went to Buca for a feast! The women in the village made us a meal of curries, wace (cassava leaf patties with garlic and onion), cassava root, rice, and pastries. There was enough food for 25 people, made just for the four of us! The food was delicious and it was nice to talk with the village women. After our meal, we took water samples at seven taps in the village.

On Day 5, Friday (August 6), we headed to Loa in the morning to walk their water line within the village. They have some very large leaks on the east side of the village, so large that they have to shut off the water on that side of the village for most of the day. If the water is left on, there is no water pressure left for the rest of the village. It was very hot and after our tour of the line, we enjoyed some more Bu (green coconut water) with Jesoni, the head of the water committee, and Jim, also on the water committee.

In the afternoon, we had a tour of the Mission slow sand filter water treatment system with another Mosese, who is in charge of all the filter maintenance. We took water samples at 6 points along the system - at the source, at the outlet pipe at the sand filter, after being filtered through the sand filter, in two of the storage tanks, and from the Mission taps.

In the evening, we went to Loa to listen to some Fijian and American music played by Jim and a third Mosese, which was quite nice.

On Day 6, Saturday (August 7), we traveled to Savusavu to relax, dip our toes in the ocean, and pick up some more water and supplies.

The food is delicious here- we have been eating so much! There is no meat, but lots of cassava, bread, and vegetarian protein. The weather is variable - changing from hot and drier to cooler and very humid, but it has been mostly comfortable.

We anticipate another full week of work ahead! Hopefully, we receive all the supplies early in the week and begin construction in all three villages. We will update again most likely next weekend - so Moce (goodbye) for now!

Adrienne, Kelly, Maggie, and Thomas

Fiji 2010. We're back!

Since our departure in August, 2009, the EWB Fiji team has been working diligently to prepare for a return to Buca Bay to implement some serious projects in the three villages of Buca, Loa, and Vunikura. As I write, we have four team members (Adrienne, Maggie, Thomas, and Kelly) in country preparing to make improvements to the villages' water distribution systems, and two more (Kim and Shakeel) are on their way! The materials are in, the village help is plentiful, and the time is now to begin a years-long process of improving the water quality for the residents of Buca Bay, Fiji! Check back soon for blog updates and photos!