Crunch Time

As our projects and time in Kenya are drawing to a close, the essential design teams have been wrapping up projects and fixing snags along the way.

The anaerobic digester team had some issues with a leak in the seal connecting a pipe to their main tank and spent a lot of the day working to repair it. They again bailed the water out of the tank and applied silicon gel. It will sit overnight and tomorrow they will fill it again. Meatnwhile, they have been putting together other components of the digester. They set up the water trap, which catches the condensed water that will be in the biogas. They also set up the gas hose. Liz went to Wambugu farms to confirm that they can pick up some slurry from them tomorrow morning, which they will hopefully be able to put in the tank.

The drip irrigation and high tunnel teams went to Nyeri first thing in the morning to pick up some more supplies. Upon arrival at CYEC, the drip irrigation team reattached the endcap to our main line, which came off yesterday due to water pressure. We let it sit to seal and will run water to test the seal and calculate flow tomorrow. Tomorrow we also hope to put some sort of fence or barrier around the field so that young students are not tempted to play with the lines. Elias, the student who was a huge help in repairing our tank and putting together the connections yesterday, made a scarecrow for the field. As we did not have much work today, I spent the afternoon helping the high tunnel team.

The high tunnel team finished putting up the mesh after getting in from town. After lunch they had the challenge of putting the large sheet of plastic over the tunnel hoops. After some strategizing, they decided to unfold the plastic and roll up each end into the middle. Then, they would lift it to the top and roll it down from the center. They recruited as much help as the could for this process, and after a couple snags on the frame the effort was a success. We then nailed the plastic along the wooden cross braces. The high tunnel team was very excited to see it coming to into shape so well.

Graham and Elias secured the endcap on the main line

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