House Building Part 2: Water Access

It is easy to take for granted having reliable water access in America. Not so in Uganda! One of the big obstacles we faced in building our home was getting water to the construction site. World Harvest Mission first brought running water to Nyahuka 20 years ago. Our team's water engineer oversaw a project that channeled water from a local waterfall to large storage tanks on the mission property. The water was then distributed to public water taps that were built in many locations in the community, providing the first clean water access for Nyahuka. Prior to this, drinking water came exclusively from the Nyahuka River, which is also used for bathing and washing.

Nyahuka falls, which brings water to our community via the Nyahuka river

Our initial plan was to bring water to the construction site by connecting to underground pipes from our neighbor's yard. 

We dug a trench about 50 meters to connect to existing pipes.

We bought two 1000L water tanks to store the water for brick making and concrete work. Here our local plumber is building temporary stands for the water tanks.

We hit a snag when we discovered that the water pressure was not high enough to fill our tanks. This was partly due to construction beginning in the dry season when there was not much rainfall. The other factor was that our water system is now 20 years old and is overly stretched by the current population.

With no water at the construction site when our building team was working on the foundation, we were forced to carry water uphill from the river in the valley behind our home for several days. One morning I was up at 6am carrying water in the dark up the hill from the river. After just a few trips, I was exhausted. I gained a deep respect for the women and children that I see carrying water on their backs everyday to take home for cooking and washing. When the construction team told us they would need 2000L of water per day for several weeks to pour a concrete foundation, we quickly realized that carrying water in jerry cans was not going to work as a long term solution.

After consulting with our missionary team's water engineers, we decided to buy a generator pump that would allow us to pump water directly from the river into our water tanks. We had to find the shortest distance from the river to our construction site and then negotiate with the local land owners to get permission to place a pump and pipes on their land.

After measuring the distance from the river to our water tanks, we bought 300 meters of plastic pipe in Fort Portal (2 hours away) and then bought a water pump in Kampala (8 hours away).

We were thankful to have a large roof rack on our car so we could transport the hose pipe.

When the water pump finally arrived we carried it down to the river to see if it would work. It was pure joy when we turned the pump on and filled our 2000L tanks in about 5 mins! It had previously taken all day (literally!) to carry this much water by hand....