Thursday, April 07, 2005

Second Day

Just a quick update because I don't have much time and I'm really worn out. Today was really slow going on the hole. The water coming into it makes it almost impossible to get any of the sand and mud out. I think our total progress for the day was a couple of centimeters of depth. It was really exhausting both physically and emotionally. We're trying to get a pump to handle the water so that we can just dig. Thus far we haven't had any luck, but there are a few open doors. Getting the right equipment can be a lot harder when you aren't in America. Until we get a pump, or discover a new, more effective technique, we probably won't spend any more time on that hole. It just doesn't make any sense to put all of that work into not getting anything done.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Phillip,

You know that a easy way to dig a hole for a pipe is to place the cylinder where you want it, vertically, and hop inside and start digging out. As you scoop away from the edge of the cylinder, it will settle in. This prevents hole collapse as well, and you don't have to musle the pipe into the hole.

Keep up the good work.

Bob D.

Philip said...

Yeah, we actually did drop the pipe in, that's how we know how little progress we made. The real problem is that it is almost impossible to dig out the mud and sand from under the pipe when there's a foot of standing water above the mud and sand. It also didn't help that we pretty much needed to be constantly bucketing the water out just to keep the water level at only a foot. Hopefully this will all be solved by us finding a water pump to keep the water level down to almost nothing.