UNIVEN, Tshapasha, and Tshibvumo

The past few days we engaged in several activities such as viewing the local sights around Thohoyandou and interacting with our counterparts at UNIVEN. On Sunday, Daniel and some members from other UVA teams attended a local church that lasted most of the morning and afternoon. The rest of the team went on a scenic drive around Thohoyandou in search of Phiphidi Falls or a trail to hike. Phiphidi falls turned out to be closed, possibly due to the dry season or because it was a Sunday afternoon. We still were able to see a gorgeous panoramic of the mountainous terrain and even came across some very large tea fields in the valley below the road (pictured below). At dinner on Sunday, all UVA students came together and had a potluck dinner at Acacia Park. Our task was to make the vegetable dish for the dinner, consisting of potatoes, carrots, onions, vegetable curry, and Chaka Flaka sauce. The boiled mix was deemed Chaka Flaka Flame.
Monday was our orientation at the University of Venda (UNIVEN). The University had a very similar layout to an American university. There were sports fields, dormitories, academic buildings, and dining halls (the image below shows the campus layout). Upon entering the main g ate, there was a soccer stadium to the left. We later found out t hat UNIVEN has a big soccer league that is similar to our Intramural sports league. Each UNIVEN student can join a team and play in the league. There were a couple basketball courts, but noticed that the baskets didn’t have any backboards. The actual orientation took place in UNIVEN’s “Senate Hall” room, which was very similar to a large auditorium in the States and could sit about 250 people. Seats alternated between UNIVEN and UVA students. Orientation began by getting to know the UNIVEN students around you. After several presentations of the overall goals of the Water and Health in Limpopo (WHIL) project, we broke for lunch in the UNIVEN cafeteria. For many of us this was our first chance to try the most common South African dish, pap. Pap (pronounced like pop) is made out of maize meal and can best be described as a really thick, grit-like porridge that you eat with your hands. Our meal consisted of pap, beef, salad, and cranberry sauce. Pap would be mixed with the beef or cranberry sauce to give it some additional flavor. Typically, pap is served with every meal and can be mixed with just about any flavor. In the afternoon we met with the UNIVEN students who would be working on the Slow Sand Filter with us, and we worked together to come up with a workplan for the summer. By the end of the day, a meeting had been set up with the Chiefs of Tshapasha and Tshibvumo so that we could tell them what we planned to be doing in their villages in the coming weeks and get their approval.

Today (Tuesday) our team along with Professor Louis and other WHIL counterparts ventured out to the villages of Tshapasha and Tshibvumo to meet Chief Hendrick and Chief Lucas respectively. We woke up at 5:30 AM to pick up the UNIVEN students and begin our trip out to the villages. We were able to see the sunrise over the mountains because of how early it was. All of us were a little nervous to meet the village chiefs because we were told that you cannot look the chief in the eye and you can only speak if you are spoken to. Traditionally, any visitors to the chief must bring small presents. We did not bring any presents as we did not have them yet, but Professor Louis made sure to let the chiefs know that we were bringing presents.
Our first meeting was with Chief Lucas of Tshibvumo who was a very kind man. When we arrived he was setting up benches and chairs by himself so that we could sit. This was very nice because if the chief does not offer you a chair, the men are required to squat like a catcher in baseball and the women are required to lay on the ground. Chief Lucas did not require us to follow all of the traditional rules, and he allowed us to look at him and talk to him. He was very excited for us to get started on our project. In the middle of the meeting he disappeared for seemingly no reason and returned with a tray full of extremely large mangos and avocados. The mangos were the size of soccer balls and the avocados were the size of softballs. When the official meeting adjourned, Chief Lucas asked us if we knew what all of the trees around his yard were. When none of us knew, he pointed out banana, mango, avocado, and orange tree all in the surrounding area to where we were standing. He joked and said how he grows everything in his yard, and that there is no need for him to go buy any food. We said our goodbyes and drove down the road to Tshapasha. We parked at the Chief’s brother Chilidze’s house which was next door to the Chief. Chilidze looked to be in his mid to upper 20’s, was dressed in a UVA shirt, and was very interested in Americans. He showed us his timberland boots that had been given to him by a previous UVA student, and asked to see our USA driver’s licenses. He even had an american football sitting in his yard. Throughout the day we saw multiple dogs, goats, and chickens roaming his property. We walked next door to Chief Hendrick’s house and sat underneath his big tree which was set up with benches all around it for meetings. This chief a little bit sterner and wanted to follow tradition more than Chief Lucas of Tshibvumo. He spoke little English so Khuthalani had to translate his wishes and concerns about making the existing SSF operational. Each morning we must check in with Chief Lucas and let him know what we will be doing on that day, and any meetings that we have with anybody must take place underneath the tree at his house. Once the meeting adjourned, we all took a look at the SSF in Tshapasha and found several problems and a seemingly daunting task ahead of us for troubleshooting. The main problem is the fact that the effluent water out of the SSF cannot flow to the storage tanks. We believe this may be due to a clog in the outlet pipe, and hopefully not a negative pressure difference. In Layman’s terms, a negative pressure difference could be thought about as the effective water level in the top of the storage tank is above the bottom of the slow sand filter, and gravity cannot be used to force the water up. If the pipe is not clogged, and the negative pressure difference is the issue, we could have to make some major changes to the system. After long discussion and calculations made today, we came up with several alternatives we could implement if there isn’t a clog and the pressure head will need to be increased. We plan to measure a number of elevation differences tomorrow using a clinometers and begin to clean out the filters so that we can see if the pipes are clogged. These elevation differences will be valuable in helping us evaluate alternatives if there is a negative pressure difference.