Ngoma - Burgess Family Water Tower
During my Peace Corps service in rural Zambia, my host family and I built a 5-meter solar-powered water tower to extract water from a hand-dug 12 meter well.
We molded nine thousand bricks out of mud from the nearby stream and fired them with sticks and logs for three days.
Over the course of three months, we built a double-walled 3x3 meter tank stand to approximately 4 meters height. It is crowned with a 5,000 liter tank that can refill within one (sunny) day.
We learned a lot from this project, especially when the concrete slab began caving in on top of us right after we poured it. After quickly bracing our planks with some poles, things went more smoothly. Through our trials and tribulations with this project, we perfected many of the techniques and plumbing concepts used in the construction of the Kazachi Tower.
The extra indoor space has served as a guest bedroom for visitors, a mushroom growing facility, and a feed/chemical storeroom, but its true purpose is in protecting the electronics for the pump from thieves and the elements.
Our houses and gardens now have running water, and my host family is now irrigating nearly two hectares of new orchard.
Deforestation is a big problem in my community; the solar-heated shower significantly reduces our consumption of firewood. We all have a lot more free time now that we aren’t spending all day pumping water, hauling buckets, and sitting in front of the fire.
