Engineers Without Borders at MSU

Yo friends! Team 3 here in Kenya bringing you an update of our work and the progress thus far. We had a great couple days with Team 2 and a sweet party for Katy's Bday. She killed a goat with her bare hands. Ask her about it. Plus some sweet pineapple drinks. But the more important stuff.

Aubrie is working to set up a new and improved penpal program with the local students in Khwisero and Bozeman. She is also working to plan more parties (something we like to focus on) for the handover of the wells. And since our knowledge of the workings of the area has exponentially increased Aubs is going to be working with the Ministry of health to see how we can work with them on improving water and sanitation education in the community.

Katie is following Katy's lead and asking lots of people lots of questions. But our Katie is putting together the history of the area and in a couple days has learned some great info. It should be an interesting read. She and Rebecca are working to put the focus groups together to further expand upon our ever increasing knowledge. Katie is also fully addicted to grilled corn. FYI.

Rebecca and Jj are working to set up some training sessions for the schools on management and technical stuffs. Hopefully this can be very helpful and work to improve the successfulness of our work in the area. We are hoping to pilot it with Shirali and Munyanza this trip and see our effective it is. Rebecca is also looking to work with the drillers and bring home the well logs so we can study the ground water in the area. Should be good.

Jj is working with Shirali and Munyanza to ensure their problems have been addressed and we can be successful moving forward. Shirali will be worked with to determine the needs of the composting latrine and address their maintenance costs. Munyanza will be worked with to ensure their water user commitee is fully operational and we have a good relationship with them. He would also like to address their water color issue and see if it can be resolved without major repairs. Jj and Rebecca will also look into potentially updating existing rain collection stations for future trips.

Team 3 is enjoying life on the homestead and we like showering in the banana trees. Keeps life interesting. Lots more stories to share when we return. See you soon.

Aubrie, JJ, Katie, Rebecca