Rice University Engineers Without Borders

The Rice University Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (Rice EWB) participated in their first-ever international EWB-USA service project from May 16-31, in the remote village of Foutaka Zambougou, Mali, West Africa.

For the Mali project, three Rice University engineering students joined eight University of Colorado (CU) engineering students, two professional engineers, and Dr. Bernard Amadei, a Civil and Environmental Engineering CU professor and founder of EWB-USA. As Rice students, we connected with the CU team in the implementation phase of their project to better understand the EWB process of project design, community participation, project implementation and management. In the fall this experience will greatly aid us in initiating Rice University's first EWB project.

As a community of approximately 1700 people (80 families), Foutaka Zambougou puts tremendous strain on its scarce water supplies. Because of increasingly semi-arid conditions, drought, and harsh dry seasons, their greatest concerns continue to be dependable access to sufficient water quantities for subsistence agriculture and livestock, and, most importantly, clean water for the health of residents. Upon our arrival, we found one working deep-well pump, one deep-well pump that had not worked since 1986, and clusters of hand-dug wells that tapped into shallow, drying aquifers.

Two of our team members conducted health surveys and discovered about 90% of residents were sick. Community members complained often of prolonged sickness from drinking the shallow well water but they preferred it to the taste of deep well water. Community health members said that they see approximately 30 cases of malaria a month.

During our two weeks in Foutaka Zambougou, the Rice/CU team was able to complete several projects through the aid of Mali Assistance Project and the Mali Regional Director of Water and Energy Resources, Mr. Omar Toure. Two new wells were drilled, each at about 300-feet deep with ample clear, clean, fresh water (at a cost of $23,000). The villagers were joyous to have water, after suffering from February to the end of May with only 1.7 gallons per minute from one well - for 1700 people! One of the engineers instructed the village well experts in repairing a pump, broken since 1986, giving Zambougou a fourth good well with clean drinking water. Our team created a rain catchment / water management system, with the incredible help of about 200 of Zambougou's strong young men.They worked extremely hard, side by side with us, and learned how to work thesystem themselves. We were delighted to find that the village eagerly joined in on the projects and participated in every aspect of the work. The rainwater catchment system was named a Zandalla - Zan is the founder of Zambougou from about 200 years ago, and dalla means pond. Mr. Toure made five visits to Zambougou to learn about what we were doing. Hopefully this technology will now be used in other villages faced with severe drought to assist them with holding and using rainwater.

Our team was overwhelmed by the graciousness of the villagers and their many sacrifices on our behalf. One family gave up their rooms and courtyard for all of us to sleep in and another invited us to take shelter from a rainstorm - twice! We celebrated the project through dance and music. To our delight the village honored the team by presenting us with a cow and land, two very valuable belongings. Dr. Amadei and Karen hope the land will soon be the home of Foutaka Zambougou's first Peace Corps volunteer. The cow provided a feast for the whole village.

As a result of the projects and community participation, Foutaka Zambougou went from having one working deep water well to four, a mosquito attracting swamp to an effective rain catchment basin, and serious problems with life-threatening illness to increased awareness of simple disease prevention techniques. We hope our efforts and future EWB participation will further aid the community in meeting their needs for dependable water, health, and education.

Michael Higuera, Tamar Losleben, and Abigail Watrous