Some of you may be curious about how we get a borehole drilled at schools in rural Uganda.  The work is done by our drilling company DRACO Ltd., which is located in the capitol city, Kampala.  Typically, 20 local Ugandan workers are employed for the drilling and borehole construction.  The company transports the drill rig to the site, which can often be challenging because of muddy unpaved rural roads. The picture shows the rig and some of the workers at the site of Quench and Connect’s most recent borehole.  You can see the size of the large rig which has the capacity to drill to a depth of more than 80 meters to access water from the aquifer.  Once the penetration is made and sufficient water flow is achieved, pipes are installed, a hand pump is attached and the system is sealed.  At the base of the hand pump, a concrete pad is poured to prevent contamination and to provide a place that is not muddy for students to stand while they pump the water.  Also, a concrete drainage channel is poured to move excess water that spills during pumping away from the pump.  Before the students can use the pump, the concrete must ‘cure’ for a couple of weeks.  The second picture  shows the borehole pump and pad, which is covered with matooke leaves to protect it during the curing process.  Matooke is a plant that produces green bananas which are cooked all day as a staple in the Ugandan diet.