Gravity-fed water filter system

In my final 3 weeks I slept on the floor of a concrete house whilst living in Kampong Kopuron (Kampong means village in Malay) and helping to build a water filter system for the village and the next door village: the first of its kind in the whole of Malaysia! The Raleigh project groups for the 6 weeks previous to my group had concreted the weir in the nearby hills, which was the water source, installed both the filter and storage tanks (which are huge, I do not know how they carried them up to the top of the hill through the jungle!) and began laying the water pipe. We finished the project in 3 weeks, which involved laying the rest of the pipe, sometimes having to pick-axe across a road if the pipe needed to reach a house on the other side.

The main pipe was one inch wide; we then had connector and reducer pipes so that the pipe became ¾ inch closer to the houses and ½ inch when going into someone’s house. This helped ensure adequate water pressure. We then fitted taps in every house in the village, which they could drink straight from, so that they no longer had to trek for an hour to the nearest water fall, or to use the dirty water from their regular tap, which they had to boil or filter for hours. So 10km of pipe and 85 taps later, we had a fantastic opening ceremony.

Raleigh was helped financially by HSBC sponsorship and was working in collaboration with a local NGO called Pakos and also engineers from a company called Tomher. The latter whom designed this version of the system, supplied the parts for free and chose this village to be a ‘model village’ so that hopefully this will encourage other villages to use this system.

I spoke to Frank, the head engineer, who told me a little about the system. The filter system was invented in Scotland in 1812 and by the end of the century, every city in Europe was using it, but as the cities grew with industrialisation, the system was too big and expensive so they stopped being produced. In the 1980s it was reproduced to filter dirty water in Africa by WHO.

The basic idea is that dirty water enters the top of the filter tank and takes around 10 hours to reach the bottom as it filters through layers of sand, gravel and the all-important carbon, which in this case comes from local resources of coconut husk. It is then safe to drink, which has been scientifically proven. It does go through a chlorinator but this is only to kill any bacteria contracted from the inside of the pipes. It enters a very large storage tank, from which pipes go downhill through the jungle to reach Kampongs Kopuron and Bestaria.

Sun Bears

In my first three weeks in Sabah, Borneo, we were building a bridge from the Orang-Utan sanctuary to the brand new Sun Bear Sanctuary, both at Sepilok, which will help bring tourists and therefore money to the latter. We sawed wood, we dug dirt, we banged (bung?) in nails, we mixed concrete, all the while sweating in the sweltering heat and humidity while monkeys, and a baby pygmy elephant called Curtis, watched us from the nearby trees.

There were 12 bears at the centre when we were there in February and they are hoping to get more as soon as possible. The aim is to rescue, rehabilitate and release the bears, which are the smallest of only 8 bear species in the world. They are endangered and very little is known about them, but I learnt a little bit whilst on the project: they are dark brown and each with a distinct yellow (sun-like) marking on their chest- each one is different, like snow flakes. They have very sharp claws for climbing trees, an amazing sense of smell for sniffing out where there is a bee hive within a tree and extremely long tongues to reach the honey inside.

Unfortunately, people are charmed by these very cute bears when they are young and keep them as pets. When they are older, the owners cannot control this wild animal so keep it in a small cage and feed it scraps of food (mostly rice) with very little nutrients in, so its fur falls out and it grows thin and even more aggravated. The sun bears are also accidently caught in snares or shot dead for their organs, which are used in Chinese medicine; some believe that the gall bladder gives youthfulness and vitality when ingested, whereas others believe the middle claw will help you be ‘the middle man’ in any conflict. Obviously there is no scientific evidence for either of these claims.

This is the only Sun Bear Sanctuary in the world and I really hope I have made a small difference to ensuring its growth and successful maintenance in the future.

A slightly shorter blog post

I am aware that it is common courtesy to keep blog posts short and sweet, so to make up for the recent mini-theses below, today I would like to share a mere mini-phrase I found in an advert for Hermes, which for me evoked thoughts of the Glamorous Green: ‘she sleeps on silk and dreams green dreams...’

Nature calls!

You may be wondering how on earth we managed when nature called. Well, every time we arrived at a new place on our jungle trek, one of the first things to do was to dig a long drop. The depth depended on how long we were spending in that place, but usually 2 feet deep would suffice for 15 people over night. We were on our static project sites for 3 weeks at a time so you dug it as deep as possible! I think on our first phase we dug 3 total for 3 weeks, each one about 5 feet deep. The soil from the hole was left by the side so that once you had done your business, you discretely covered it over. Before leaving, it was someone’s duty to fill the rest of it in with soil and cover it over with twigs/leaves. In a way we were actually feeding the environment!

I wrote a poem about it called ‘Ode to a long drop’ and it goes like this:

Dearest darling LD,
I do have something to confess:
Before we were introduced,
I was no fan of a cess.

But now that we’re acquainted
(10 weeks I’ve used you for wee)
You have become part of my routine
And therefore part of me.

At first I dreamt of toilet seats,
The flush of a regular loo.
I’ll admit there was a slight worry
About doing that first poo.

But back at home, I’ll still want to squat,
To see familiar AWAS* and hanging roll**.
‘Tis true, we are soon to part my dear
And I’ll miss you, you big old hole!


*AWAS refers to red and white caution tape strung up between trees to indicate the long drop location (Awas means caution/warning in Malay).
** A loo roll was hung in a plastic bag at the start of the trail to the long drop away from camp. If it was hanging there, you were free to go to the long drop. If it was not there, you had to wait as someone was using the long drop.

Aqua por favor

On trek our water was from rivers, which we washed in using biodegradable travel wash, or purified to drink. On static sites, our water was from a water tank, which we had to monitor so as not to waste water (remembering to turn it off before we left jungle camp, but also ensuring there was enough water in the tank for our return at the end of the day). We became water tank savvy as we got used to knowing how much water would be needed to fill up our large 25-litre jerry cans for purification and drinking, for our ‘showers’ (bucket over the head, my dear) and for our ‘three bowls’.

The three bowl system was set up to reduce the risk of any illness spreading throughout the group or infections from animals and insects. Before cooking, three large bowls were filled with just enough water for use: the first was used with washing gel to get food debris off our cooking utensils and cutlery, the second was a ‘rinse bowl’ of purified water and the third was water with bleach in it to kill bacteria. After meals we would ‘three-bowl’ (bowl #1, 2, 3 in that order), but before meals we would simply ‘two-bowl’, which meant putting your cutlery in the bleach bowl and then rinsing it off (bowl #3, 2).

Sometimes when it was very hot or there was a problem with the water pipe further down, we would not have any water available for a day or so. We quickly learnt about the importance of water conservation and realised how much we take for granted having running water at home.

I’m baaaaaaaaaack!

The rumours are true, I have indeed returned to the UK from my 10-week volunteering expedition to Borneo and finally have internet access again (not that I missed it) so expect a few more blog posts!

I have learnt a lot about reducing your impact on the surrounding environment and have adhered to the phrase ‘leave only footprints, take only memories’ as much as possible. We had to quickly learn to suppress our automatic-pilot reactions to very large bugs landing on us and not squash them as, according to our jungle-trek guide, this stirs up bad jungle spirits (Avatar anyone?!) We certainly were not picking flowers, but took scores of photos of them; however the guides did show us how they use the forest resources sustainably to make bamboo cutlery. We were careful choosing the trees to tie our hammocks to so as not to cause damage and put all our food waste in separate dry and wet slops pits, which we filtered and covered over.

Borneo!

Apologies for the lack of blogs of late blog-readers!

I am working as swine flu co-ordinator for NHS Plymouth which as you can imagine is a very busy job! On a lighter and brighter note, I am heading to Borneo for 3 months, leaving January 31st 2010, to undertake a Raleigh expedition.

In Borneo I will help build a gravity-fed water supply system for a community and take part in the fantastic marine conservation and wildlife protection work out there. In order to do this voluntary work, I must raise £2000 for the Raleigh charity. This does not go towards my trip, but towards Raleigh's work as an organisation, which includes sustainable environmental work in Borneo, Costa Rica and India, as well as work with 'at risk' young people in the UK.

Please feel free to find out more and help me towards my fundraising target at www.justgiving.com/borneorosie

Thank you! ;)