School, Wells and Charcoal

This morning we were up early and went over to the school in time for Harley and Logan to attend Mr Mutale's Grade 9 English class at 8:00 a.m. This time the subject was Tenses, specifically the Past Tense, and they enjoyed the experience.

At 10:00 a.m. we all attended a meeting with the school PTA to share information and ideas about how we can continue to work together for the future development of the school. At the meeting we were able to tell them that we could provide the necessary funds to complete the staff housing duplex which they had already started and currently 50% complete; so that elicited great excitement.

In the afternoon we went with the Headman again to visit some more wells with problems. At one we found that the rods had sheared off their connection to the pump head and dropped into the well - a problem that will require some specialist attention to fix. At the next one we found that there was nothing happening when the handle was pumped but that there didn't seem to be any "resistance". So we took the head of the pump off and removed all the rods - 14, 3 meter sections - each one having to be unscrewed from the next as they were raised from the well casing. When we removed the last one we found that there was no non-return valve cylinder on the end - the obvious reason why there was no water being pumped up ! - but no idea why it was "missing". Either one was never put on or it was not tightened properly and fell off after being used for a while. (Note : we could have bought a replacement cylinder but did not have the necessary tools to have been able to do the repair job which would have required pulling the whole down pipe as well.)

On the way back from this well we came across this young man who makes charcoal. This is a very common activity in this area. Trees are cut down and the wood stacked in a big pile intermingled with green grass. The pile is then covered with dirt and the grass set alight. Over 7-8 days the whole lot smoulders away turning the wood into charcoal. (Without much air the wood does not catch fully alight.) The charcoal is then packaged into 50kg (100 lb) bags and shipped to the main highway - usually by ox cart - where it is purchased and taken into one of the towns or cities for sale. The local producer receives 15,000 Kwacha (about C $ 4.50) per bag while it will sell for double that in the town.