Dam blog.

Well once again my over reaching plan has changed, but at least this time around I am already seeing more quantifiable results. A few months ago a fellow volunteer came to visit my site, Ed “kick in the pants” O’connell. Ed is the other aquaculture promotion volunteer that was placed in Central Province from my intake. One day while he was at my site I confided in him about some of the struggles and apprehension I had met with getting fish farming going in my village. One of the biggest adversaries that I had faced was that of the dambo or a low lying area of land that collects water, similar in many regards to a swamp. The reason undrainable ponds are so feared is because the amount of controllable variables is significantly less. Now in training we learned about rural aquaculture that specifically dealt with drainable ponds. An area in which I had no prior knowledge and it was a beg step out of my comfort zone. Seeing that Nshinso has few to no furrows, I was a bit nervous of working with dambos or undrainable ponds, being an even further stretch outside of my comfort zone.

Most volunteers avoid them if they can, a crowd of which I was apart. Then if the crowd of aquaculture volunteers that participate in dambo ponds is small, the group of volunteers that actively builds dams is that much smaller. Aquaculture was already a stretch for me, building a dam was just too far. Too far that is until Ed “kick in the pants” O’connell asked why I hadn’t already built one, making it seem like the most natural thing a person could do. For some reason this innate sense of reservation has not presented itself in Ed. I think it might have something to do with the fact that he has not read a single book at site. Instead, he has stock piled his hut with Peace Corps manuals, getting to know them quite intimately.

To my good fortune I was in the process of staking ponds when one of my closest neighbors quite randomly expressed interest in building a dam for his dambo. So with Ed’s kick in the butt, I figured why not. Now building a dam is not exactly a small undertaking because you are trying to block a large amount of water all traveling one direction. Furthermore, seeing that this farmer was a subsistence farmer with two kids, the oldest being no more than two ruled the children out of helping. Also, he had little capital to invest in the hiring of help. Weighing these factors I eagerly offered my assistance seeing that I also had no idea what I was doing, this way we could help each other along. As a side note: A common theme in Peace Corps is getting asked for wheel barrows from the natives, seeing that many Aid organizations have built reputations for giving them out. I was not planning on doing this, so I figured it was a good chance to see what the bare minimum amount of tools was that we would need to build the dam. Even more so, no one else was using me and I figured why not. So, with two hoes and a shovel we started picking away at this monster panono panono(bit by bit).

We broke ground and from the get go we were already having disagreements. More often than not I won the argument, but occasionally I would have to bite my tongue. We started around early October and a few days later the first rain was soon to follow. The problem with this is that as soon as the rain comes Ba Richard would have to start working on his maize field, which would halt any progress made on the dam. The first rain struck and we were filled with panic. If we had any hope of finishing we needed to kick it into high gear. A typical day would start at around 6am and we would work until 11am. Generally we stopped at 11am because by then the sun was beating down. The early rain also required us to plug the key early(center of the dam wall usually left to be filled at the end). This is because as the rain increases the flow of water running between the walls may become to strong and compromise our ability to plug the middle of it. So we plugged it prematurely even though the dam walls were not finished. Plugging the key early means that building the dam becomes a race. If the water level keeps rising, we then have to build the height of the walls before the water level reaches the top and flows over.

We proceeded to plug the walls as quickly as possible, neither of us knowing if it would really hold water. The next day we kept working, continually observing the dam. We noticed something but both of us were too nervous to tell the other. Finally, after the second day we couldn’t hold it in any longer and I finally remarked quite jovially to Ba Richard, “Do you see that, it is actually blocking the water!” Just below the dam had completely dried. None of it was leaking. But the first rain was just that and the second and third were no where to be found. We continued digging, but day by day it seemed to just get hotter and dryer, eventually the dambo completely dried. Fortunately and unfortunately, the rain that led us to believe a down poor was coming turned out to be a flash in the pan.

Crazy. It is the only way to describe how one feels when looking up at a cloudless sky, tossing on another shovel full of dirt as the wind picks up and blows it back in your face. You know that rainy season is supposed to be around the corner, but you begin to think that it is all in your head.

In practice Ba Richard and I currently have a meter and a half high mound of dirt that is increasingly getting dryer as hot season progresses. In theory we have a dam. As the rains come, which should be any day now, the dyke wall is supposed catch the water, raising the water level. On either side of the dam approximately 20cm below the height of the dyke wall we have two spill ways, a place for the water to exit, before the dam over flows. As the water reaches the spill way it is then furrowed off. Water that originally acted as run off can now be used for gardens, drainable fish ponds or maize production. Also, it gives the farmer the ability to have a regular amount of water that can be irrigated for a few months of the year rather than depending on the unpredictability of the rains. Thus, my focus by working on a farmers demo plot has shifted from a top down, to a bottom up approach.

“So Will, we have heard you rant about what you “trying” to do in the past and have seen how effective those attempts have been, what makes this time any different?”There are several things that have already made this plan much more effective. The first is that this farmer and the dam are quite close in proximity. From my door it is about a 10 minute walk to the dam and even closer to the farmer’s house. This cuts down significantly on travel time. Furthermore, it provides a visual for the farmers to see how the theory will work in practice as opposed to working purely from theory, also known as a demo plot.

The next big benefit is that it effectively weeds out those who are just looking to waste my time. Before I would bike about 30 minutes to Nshinso(the epicenter of my village), set up times to meet with farmers in town and then wait about 2 hours for them not to show up. Then I had a nice 30 minute bike ride back home. In all, my previous method wasted about 3 hours or more of my day producing no results. Now just I set up a time with the farmer for them to meet me at my site. This allows them to see a dam being properly built, also providing an opportunity for them to talk with Ba Richard explaining things that I might leave out, in their native language Bemba.

So how has the plan actually worked in practice?

Since we have started, I have had about scheduled 7 meetings and three of people I have scheduled with have actually shown up. For those that did not show up, instead of wasting over 3hrs I have relaxed in my hut reading or occupying my time with other activities. If you make it out to my site to see the dam I will then explain the finer points of dam construction. This gives the farmer a chance to see a finished working model and you have won the chance for me to visit your site and make a site assessment. Out of the three farmers that have visited, I have staked three dams and two have broken ground. For this late in the season I tally the progress as a huge success.