Lubudi Well Project

The man in the middle is about to “spider walk” inside this concrete ring down
 9 meters (28 feet) where he will continue to dig until he reaches water.  
The other men haul the buckets of dirt up using the above pulley system.

Photos of the arduous task of digging a well by hand.  Congo Kazi got off to a slow start and so these are photos of just the first of three wells.

These photos show the laborious and difficult process of moving a « virole » into position.  A virole is a reinforced concrete ring one meter high and one meter in diameter.  The first virole is put on the ground where the well is to be dug.  The well digger jumps inside and starts digging and eventually the virole drops one meter so the top is at ground level.  The next virole is then rolled, tilted and somehow moved into position on top of the first virole, and then the entire process is repeated.  A 20-meter deep well will have……20 viroles stacked on top of each other.

The Lubudi project consists of 6 wells, three installed by our friend Eloi and three by Kongo Casi.  These photos include a typical street scene in Lubudi plus the installation of the third and last of Eloi’s wells.  Eloi is wearing the red hart hat; Gloria is pumping water.