Barak Bruerd

Time Lapse

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

In dry season, the flow volume over Victoria Falls recedes significantly, revealing pools of water carved out in the basalt river bottom.  In some cases, these pools are cut at the extreme edge of the falls, allowing swimmers to peer over the 300 ft + precipice to the gorge below [note: not for the faint of heart].  Here Codie launches off a 15 ft ledge into “Devil’s Pool” which I caught in a time-lapse shot.

Victoria Falls

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Here’s a few clips from Wikipedia on the falls: Victoria falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer, is believed to have been the first European to view the Victoria Falls. While it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is claimed to be the largest. This claim is based on a width of 1,708 metres (5,600 ft)and height of 108 meters (360 ft), forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world.  The recent geological history of Victoria Falls can be seen in the form of the gorges below the falls. The basalt plateau over which the Upper Zambezi flows has many large cracks filled with weaker sandstone.Over at least 100,000 years, the falls have been receding upstream through the Batoka Gorges, eroding the sandstone-filled cracks to form the gorges. The falls have already started cutting back the next major gorge, at the dip in one side of the “Devil’s Cataract” (also known as “Leaping Waters”) section of the falls.

In Their Shoes

Posted on September 08, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

The statistics vary, but most seem to agree that women and children in Africa walk somewhere between 2 and 5 miles a day to get water – a task that can take up to 70% of the day. Though words can be used to describe a 5 gallon jerry can weighing 40lbs there’s nothing quite like trying to carry one yourself – an activity we often use to help first-time visitors to the continent gain perspective on exactly how impacting a well can be in a community. We drew quite a crowd as we carried jerry cans through this village in Zambia and one local woman asked why we were carrying water. When told it was so we could better understand the challenges of living without running water her laughing response was “but they are only carrying one bucket?!”

Drilling Deeper

Posted on September 05, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Julias Mpepa, one of Seeds of Hope’s lead drillers, is setting up to add another section of drill stem. This well in Misaka will probably hit the 50 meter mark. While shallow groundwater exists in this region, high population densities cause rapid contamination, necessitating the drilling of deeper boreholes. Depending on the rig and geology, this process can take a few days to a few weeks.

Well Drilling

Posted on September 05, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Misaka is a small peri-urban community outside Ndola Zambia with about 8,000 people, a few hand dug wells, and a muddy river. A government run school with 3 unpaid teachers provide education to 350 of the community’s children, grades 1-5. 3 wells have just been drilled in the past few weeks. This will be the 4th. A hand pump may not appear much in a landscape as harsh as this, but one smiling man shook my hand and said “our land is fertile and this water brings us hope.”

Hand Dug Well

Posted on September 05, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

In areas with shallow (and sometimes not so shallow) ground water, hand dug wells are a an access technology that dates back to the dawn of man.  But as ancient and quaint as they may seem, hand dug wells are more or less disease-in-a-pit, especially when dry season concentrates the pathogens living in the well (kind of like reducing a soup to concentrate the flavor).  Latrine proximity is also a significant issue – not only because of leeching human waste, but because too often, the pits are dug all the way down to the water table (hey, if you’re going to go to the effort, dig once really big right?).  Hand dug wells like this also presents a significant safety issue b/c they are unlined and uncapped.  Stories of animals and even children falling down wells are far from uncommon, and well-collapse has caused more than one death.

Oasis in Marsabit

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

Its hard to describe what it’s like to stand in a wasteland, surrounded on all sides by scorched earth as far as the eye can see.  Even more so, its hard to describe what water means to a place like this.  Camels numbering in the thousands surround this place and men wade knee deep in the green water lifting bucket after bucket to the watering trough.  It is a place that is at once both treacherous and beautiful.

Sunset Breeze

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Barak in North America | No Comments

Beach in Panama City, FL.

Stormy Sky

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Barak in North America | No Comments

Safe’ish Water…

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Barak in Africa | No Comments

The water is clean, but the container is not. Containers like these were championed by the UN and other aid agencies as being better than open containers – the logic being that containers with a lid reduce the risk of recontamination. That may be true, but only if you can fit your hand inside to scrub them clean on a regular basis.  Put a nice container like this in a dark, cool hut in the humid tropics and you have a near perfect breedng ground for bacteria, mould, and algae.  Imagine  how you’d feel if it a particular Brita water filter was discovered to facilitate bacteria growth, contaminating your drinking water and there was nothing you could do to fix it?  You’d be outraged.  Headlines would fly fast and furious and the public would demand a recall (not to mention the EPA).  Brita would be forced to respond or sacrifice their reputation and lose valuable customers.  Yet this is what we do to the poor every day.  There will never be a product recall on the 10+ million yellow jerry cans that have flooded communities around the world; nor any of the other inappropriate solutions imposed upon people in developing countries.  The nature of poverty is that the poor have no voice.  If there is to be any change in this, then the only recourse is for us to have the integrity to hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard.