December's Work, in Pictures

Not the official way to join two pipes... but it does work

Two weeks ago I joined up with Mok and his team. Right away, I was given charge of designing a system to bring springwater up to a village. We also took trips to and stayed at a few other rural villages around Yunnan. For one, we investigated a water resource system needing replacing. At another, we evaluated the results of a past water project, and brought government officials along. Then at two others, we interviewed villagers to see if starting a biogas project would be suitable.

To write about it all that has happened on these trips would require thousands of words. I've been told that pictures are worth about that many, so today I'll use them to tell my story. The following pictures are in chronological order.

The Water Here - Part 3: In the City and In the Air

Water in the City

One Saturday morning, I walked to the edge of the village, flagged down a bus, and was smuggled into the city. I don’t think I have ever been ‘smuggled’ anywhere before. It is a law that every passenger has a seat on the bus in order to pass the city gates; otherwise heavy fines are given to the bus operators. When my fellow workers and I got on the already full bus, instead of refusing paying customers, the driver’s wife pulled out short stools and had us sit, packed in the aisle, all squatting. Our heads only came up to the seated passengers’ shoulders, and in this way we were secretly transported past security and into the city.

The Water Here - Part 2: At the Factory

My first two full weeks here were spent at the Ceramics Water Filter factory, in a small village about half an hour outside of Kunming City. This post describes the water situation there, and what I've learned.

Water at the Factory

 Our tap water comes from a neighboring village higher in elevation, at the foot of Xi Shan, or West Mountain. It is operated manually, so the hours are inconsistent and vary widely. I guess when we have water depends on projected usage, time of year, amount stored at present, and how much the pump operator had to drink the previous night. To mitigate this, we have a unique water system of our own design. 

The Water Here - Part 1: Green Paint

Having been here a few weeks, I can now start to paint you an accurate picture of the water situation... in green!

A Lake of Green Paint

The first encountered, most well known, unavoidable and shocking water feature here is Dianchi, the enormous lake downstream of Kunming City. It struck me as odd when I saw it on Google Maps before coming here, but I dismissed it, thinking it was just poor image processing. No way could the lake be that color. I was right – Google's sky pictures show a dull, hazy green; in reality, it is a vivid, sickly green. Seen from a satellite, neither the thick viscosity nor the odor is communicated. see pictures below