Applied Technology and Water Wells

Saturday my friend John Lay set up meeting and a demonstration of an applied technology approach to water wells. Weston and I went to the home to Ray and Lauralee Lindholm. Ray and Lauralee served in Ethiopia for years and have a ministry called Heart for Ethiopia they've set up to support the work.
Ray and Weston.

The whole set up. The pipe that digs the well is supported by a pulley and ropes. You lift and drop this device while water pours down into the hole.

The bolt allows this tip to move up and down. Water come down through this pipe. The up and down motion of the pipe adds pressure to speed up the digging. The tip breaks up the dirt or rock.


The top of the pipe.
Pulley.
Once the hole is dug and casing is set up, this is your pump. The brown looking washers are leather and used for the pump itself.

Here's a quote from their website.

Drilling of wells to
Provide safe water supplies using conventional technology is
cost prohibitive for most rural families or communities. Heart
for Ethiopia has recently discovered a manual well-drilling
process that can be performed by local volunteer labor with
somewhat primitive locally made tools . The drilling process had already been successfully applied in several other countries. Now wells have been completed in Ethiopia by the manual drilling process and are supplying adequate quantities of clean safe water in remote rural villages. We have found that by using this manual process, a well can be drilled and fitted with a manual pump for a cost of only $200 (cost of materials only). [emphasis mine]

My hope is we can replicate this, or something very similar, in Sudan.