My Dam Absence

14 Feb 2012 | Magalela Village, Zambia (-17.2983, 26.08541)

It recently came to my attention that I have been a little unmotivated after my dam project was literally washed away last November. As a result, I have not really kept up with my photos or blog and I apologize for that. Talking about it with other volunteers has helped so I thought I would share what I know with you:

On November 10th Rasa and I took a trip to Northwest Province. At that point the rains were already two weeks late and the dam was a month behind schedule. Events like funerals, a summons from the chief, school board meetings and life just made the completion date impossible to keep. Plus, it was hard to press people on the importance of beating the rains when it is THEIR project, I could only advise. The rains came the weekend of Thanksgiving and I was not in the village to oversee the big test. From what I was told, the dam height was level with the ground but was still missing 30cm of safety freeboard and the water level was right at the top. The spillway was unfinished but large enough to allow the volume of water to bypass the dam. All was holding until a log came swashing down the creek and hit the dam, wedging itself on top. It was enough to allow a small trickle of water over the top, turning into a torrent and wiping out three months of work in 30 minutes. We will try again next season.

When I first started thinking about this project I was a bit overwhelmed, especially because the locals thought I was a walking encyclopedia of civil engineering designs and could build them the Hoover Dam if they so desired. To make matters worse they wanted to start the very day we arrived in the village. Luckily, I was able to reason with them and gave myself time to research all the documents I pulled from FAO on how to build small earthen dams in Africa. It was a great report on how to carry out the whole process without a dime of funding or decent tool; totally village appropriate technology. My favorite was making a survey level and rod out of binoculars and tape measurer.

After coming up with a design and location, the next step was to prepare the site. This went well enough with only a small problem when the village tried to burn off the extra grass; the fire kind of got out of control and went on to clear the entire pasture. The biggest obstacle was convincing the villagers why we needed to remove the top layer of soil and dump it in the field. In technical terms, the soil was friable or loamy and full of roots so not at all good for the foundation of a dam. A lot of my explanations needed to be explained in relative terms that they could comprehend. For this example, I compared it to building a mud hut and not wanting plants to grow in the mortar. It worked and we spent the next two months excavating.

By the time we stopped digging and got to the point where we could start backfilling, the moral and enthusiasm for the project had reached a low. The village and I saw the long, hard work that lay ahead and participation slowed considerably during the month of August. It was hard for them to visualize the finished structure and accept why a crazy foreigner kept telling them to dig when we needed to be filling dirt in. To make matters worse, the hot season was starting to make itself felt on us all (I still cannot figure out how they work for hours with minimal water, while I have to drink 3.5L with a rehydration pack). It took a lot of talking and explaining on my part to keep the village on track through this phase but they kept at it despite all my insane requests.

It was not until we got to this point in the construction process that the village finally saw what we were trying to accomplish. It was so rewarding to hear them say that they were proud to have a dam of their own. But we were still a long way from being finished and time was growing short. By the beginning of October I had hoped to be finishing the dam and starting on the spillway but we still had a meter and a half yet to backfill and close by soil was scarce so we were going to have to start transporting it from another site, a timely remedy. Seeing the finish line did help keep everyone motivated though and by now the women had started to show up regularly which helped us immensely. On some days we had more than 40 people helping dig but in the end it was not enough and we all came up short.

When I first saw the damage done to the dam I started to cry and was angry but knew I could never yell at anyone in the village. They tried their best and it was probably a bigger loss for them than it would ever be for me. When I finally had a chance to talk with them about what happened the first thing they said was how much water it held and that they saw their mistakes or at least what had to happen differently the next time we worked on the dam. I was just happy to hear there would be a next time, let alone that they realized there was too little work done too late. What we worked out was that come the end of rainy season, we will stack the downstream embankment with sandbags and start filling in the core. At least this way we will be able to salvage some water from this season’s rain and give the cows something to drink during the driest months of summer. As heavy as this project has been on me, I am still looking forward to completing it and moving on to the next task. With plenty of hard work and a bit of luck my next blog about the dam will show its completion.