St Laurence’s CAFOD project: Walk for Water, supplying wells in Ethiopia
Notes on this Blog
- Religions in Ethiopia, the Afar region and recent history
- Constructing & maintaining a deep water, solar powered well
Religions in Ethiopia, the Afar region and recent history
Ethiopia, an ancient home to Jews, Christians and Muslims
Ethiopia, or Abyssinia as it was historically known, is an
ancient country with a long and rich history and has been home to the earliest Jews,
Christians and Muslims. It is one of the oldest Christian countries in the
world dating from the first century AD when St Philip is said to have arrived
in Tigray, in the north of Ethiopia. Many languages are spoken - the original
being Gaez, which has one of the oldest written alphabets on earth, dating
back some 3,500 years and still used for Christian worship in the
Orthodox and Catholic church.
Extract from Genesis
Today about 63 % of people are Christian, 34% Muslim and about 3%
animists in the extreme south, the minority of Jews having been airlifted to
Israel in the 1980’s. Most Ethiopians are intensely religious, and Ethiopia has
been a largely tolerant place for people of different faiths, with Muslims and
Christians living in peace. There are less than 1% Catholics. The Orthodox
church, which was until recently part of the Egyptian Coptic church is unique
in its practices and traditions, which are quite likely a close representation
of the original form of Christian worship.
The CAFOD project is in Afar district, in the north, a mostly Muslim area, which borders on Tigray which is predominantly Christian. Afar is home to some of the oldest hominid remains yet discovered, those of ‘Lucy’ and ‘Ardi’, who are three to four million years old. Geographically Afar is harsh, mountainous and arid and contains the Danakil depression, an inhospitable desert of salt flats with temperatures over 45 C.
Ethiopia has had a troubled political history since the overthrow
of Haile Selassie by a coup in 1974. The military government declared a
socialist state, and was a ruthless regime that carried out extrajudicial
killings and repressed opponents in order to maintain power, with an estimated
30,000 people killed between 1977 and 1987 during a period known as the Red
Terror.
Ethiopia was also plagued by severe droughts that caused
widespread famine over the 20th century. Ultimately, all these factors led to widespread
displacement, poverty, political instability and the stagnation of development.
At the end of November 1984, there was a famine in which nearly a million
people died, and caught the world’s attention with Bob Geldorf’s Band Aid.
In 1991, a coalition of rebel groups succeeded in
overthrowing the military government and Eritrea gained independence from
Ethiopia after almost 30 years of fighting for secession. Political
tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea were not resolved and in 1998 war
erupted. Some see the divide as a result of politics (rather than people and
culture) as Eritreans and Ethiopians are historically and culturally
interconnected in many ways.
A State of Emergency was declared in
October 2016 - surveillance, harassment, arrest and detainment of political
opposition was common. However, In April 2018, the new Prime Minister of
Ethiopia and Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed began implementing major democratic reforms.
Ethiopia has 90 million people - twice as many as at the time of the
famine. There has been progress, and now you see bustling towns and villages,
three-wheeler taxis plying their trade everywhere and people moving animals to
and from market.
Sadly conflict re-emerged in November last year between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian army, with Eritrea, now an ally of Ethiopia intervening. Over ten thousand refugees have fled into Sudan. This is all very close to the Afar region.
We can think ourselves very lucky that we live in a society that is not threatened daily by war, and long standing unresolved conflicts. In many places the origins can be raced back to the colonial legacy and artificial borders.
Ethiopian Crucifix, there are many ornate designs
Highly decorated churches are a feature of Ethiopian religion
One of the extraordinary rock hewn churches at Lalibela in Tigray
province
Salt flats in the Danakil depression in the Afar region
Constructing & maintaining a deep water, solar powered well
First challenge – where is the water or
underground ‘aquifer’, how deep is it and how much water is down there ?
There are hydrogeology maps which give a indication, and if wells have been
drilled nearby and the records kept, this will help. Locating the site for drilling
is never certain, and quite a number of boreholes do not strike water, adding
to the cost as the site needs to be relocated and drilled again.
Illustration of
aquifers and wells
Hydrogeological
map of Ethiopia
Second challenge – drilling the borehole, a 20-30 cm
diameter hole between 10 and 150 meters down through soft material or hard
rock. If the aquifer is shallow and the ground is soft, then a hand operated
drilling rig will be sufficient and very much cheaper – the rig is simple and
easy to transport and local labour can be used. If the aquifer is at depth, a
large powered rig is necessary, which will come from far away and needs highly
skilled operators. In a similar way, Anglia Water use drilling rigs here.
Completing the well. Deep wells have to be lined with a casing, a plastic or steel pipe, which is expensive and may need to be imported. This protects the well and stops the walls collapsing. Screens (specialised sieve-like pipe) are needed at the very bottom of the well to allow water into the borehole from the aquifer while keeping sand etc out. Finally, it is critical that the well head is properly sealed with a concrete platform to stop dirty water going back down the well and contaminating the supply and infecting the whole community.
Third challenge – Installing a pump to lift the water. Again, the depth to the aquifer makes a huge difference. For shallow wells a handpump will be sufficient, with no need for electric power or diesel. We have all seen pictures of these pumps with children showing happy faces. These pumps can be surprisingly hard work to operate - those children in the pictures need to be strong ! We used to have the same in many villages in this country, but they are now historic relics. If the aquifer is deep then a motorised submersible pump is required and will be placed at the bottom of the well.
Fourth challenge – supplying power for deep well
motorised pumps. Submersible pumps need a source of power, either electricity or a regular supply of diesel to generate electricity – both
challenging in remote rural areas. Only 14% of the population in Ethiopia is
connected to the electricity grid. This is where solar energy comes into its
own, especially as Sub-Saharan Africa has no shortage of sun. This technology
has made a huge impact, and the cost is coming down. An additional advantage of
solar powered systems is that they are more reliable and need less maintenance
than normal systems.
Final challenge – maintenance. No mechanical device
works without occasional care and attention – not our cars, bicycles or washing
machines. The local community will be involved right from the start of planning
a well and agree how the well is funded
including the contribution by the community, the ownership of the well and
maintenance responsibilities.
In the UK we pay water rates to fund all the processes described above to
large companies such as Cambridge Water.
Water supplies are organised and
regulated but infrastructure we take for
granted is less developed in Ethiopia. Communities have to organise their own
water supplies and ensure adequate maintenance to keep the supply flowing because a well is of no use if it
doesn’t work and there is no money or local skills to fix it. CAFOD works
closely with communities to build an organisation to operate and maintain the completed
well.
Very interesting
ReplyDelete