Day 11

Hey what’s up, it’s Ajay again, feeling a whole lot better.

Over the weekend, we finished the majority of the 2DR surveys but Tom and Heather decided to redo the long measurement that was done in Miranga. Sriram and Julia left with them in the morning to help them out while Jared, Tristen, and myself stayed back, debating shock-chlorinating the two tanks that we tested positive for E. coli and other coliforms. On one hand, we knew that our experiment the previous day that measured a 0.2 residual of chlorine ended up being okay for the students to feel comfortable drinking. But we also knew that the local hospital in Miranga reported no cases of waterborne illnesses from drinking harvested rainwater. We decided to go ahead and join the rest of the team in Miranga to start shock-chlorination. As we were getting ready to measure the tank volumes in order to supply the appropriate amount of chlorine to each tank, Julia stormed over to Tristen with a bone to pick. She stomped across the field and complained that he didn't take enough pictures of her and too many of the cows-- "Photograph me like one of your  Kenyan cows, Tristen!" So, she decided to have a little photoshoot with Tristen and Sriram while they waited for the 2DR to finish up! Yeah… with such great outdoor lighting, we all sort of joined in on the photoshoot, with a romantic Titanic shot from Sriram and Julia.

Anyway, it started to rain just as they finished the 2DR measurements and started wrapping up all the cables, so we decided to wait to chlorinate the tanks. And good thing too because we narrowly escaped the ensuing MASSIVE downpour. Heading back to the guesthouse to interpret these new results, we decided to kick back and start a Harry Potter marathon!

I never thought, in a billion years, that I would be sitting in a Kenyan village watching The Philosopher’s Stone.

Bye for now!