Secure water supply in the village again -- after 35 years!

Lusekele was built as a farmer training school in the early 1960s. Classrooms, housing for staff and workers, complete water system, generator electricity, labs, a fully equipped farm garage, workshops. But government commitment to training farmers soon waned. Conscientious leaders scrambled to keep the center open by trading Lusekele's wealth in equipment for operating funds. Less scrupulous leaders sold the family jewels to enrich themselves. A decade later, when the Baptist Convention of Congo agreed to base its small farm resource center and extension program at Lusekele, little but the land and buildings was left.

In 1985 when I arrived here for the first time, the remains of an old belt-driven Stork piston water pump lay in the overgrown ruins of a pump house -- no motor, no roof on the shelter, no connecting pipes. Roof-fed cisterns were the only source of clean drinking water. Irrigation was a wild dream. During the dry season workers' children carried household water from a swamp-side spring over a mile away. The water isn't always clean.

Yesterday, water flowed from the Kwilu River 500 meters to a storage tank in the middle of the center for first time in 35 years. This storage tank feeds 2 small irrigation lines for dry season seed production and hose irrigation in our demonstration garden. A little further down the line, the pipe feeds a biosand water filter that will give clean drinking and cooking water for the 20 worker's households (over 100 people) that live here.
The line continues on to the the manioc soaking bins, where ACDI processes high-quality manioc chips. Another line feeds a storage tank next the palm digester, putting us one step closer to improving the oil palm extraction operation.

Timothée Kabila caught my attention this morning. "The water system is like a corn seed," he said. "With a little care it will mature. Eventually it will begin to multiply, producing seeds of other good changes here at Lusekele." We are content for the moment to celebrate water in the village. But ultimately, I expect water to bring new life and hope to ACDI and the people we serve.

One more step forward

Two years ago five friends from Oregon and Illinois visited Lusekele and help put a roof over a large water storage tank, a key feature of the planned irrigation / dringking water system for the agricultural center. We all expected to install a pump and system piping a few weeks later. Instead we embarked on a two-year odyssey. But that odyssey is almost at an end.

Last week the pump and motor were installed in the refurbished pump house. By Tuesday morning (Sept 2) the major plumbing around the pump and the first 50 feet of piping up the hill were installed. That afternoon the Orbit pump pushed the first few gallons of water through the pipe.


Wednesday we worked out kinks with the system. The team laid the first 200 meters of pipe and installed two connection boxes.

This morning the team plans to glue the remaining 280 meters of pipe. Of course there are still a few dozen items to clear before the system will be fully functional, but we should be able to try a full test sometime next week. Imagine the celebration of that first water in the tank.