September 2025 Update

As we prepare for the second wave of Barotse Strong Pump (BSP) installations we have been busy with logistics and a side project.

Logistics

In May 2025 we shipped two parcels by truck, rail, ship and back to truck from Union Kentucky to Lusaka Zambia. Weighing a little over 3600 lb the shipment contains enough material for 200 BSPs. As per design the actual pump bodies will be fabricated by a local machine shop in Lusaka from locally purchased steel. We hope to be back in the bush installing BSPs within the next month. Our foreman John Simasiku is now in Lusaka procuring materials and overseeing the production of BSPs.

Before John returned to Lusaka to oversee the BSP fabrication he journeyed onto the Matebele and Mulonga Plains to document the villages still needing water. Recall last year we were surprised to find many villages that were missed during our 2020 survey. John found 160 additional villages in need of water. When complete this will bring us to about 270 BSPs including the 116 installed in 2024. John is also happy to report the BSPs installed last year are doing fine and changing lives!

Side Project

Before there was Project Sheluka, Beth and Joe donated funds to Kalenge Village for several years in honor of their friendship with Professor Imasiku Nyambe — he is a native of Kalenge. Unknown to us, the village council decided to save until they had enough to build a house for a nurse. Years prior the Czech Republic built a regional health clinic but the Zambian Ministry of Health would not provide a nurse until there was a house for the nurse. In June 2019 Joe was invited to a ceremony dedicating the house in honor of Joe’s late mother, Joy, who was a nurse. The dedication of the “Joy House” is what brought Joe to Kalenge Village and it was then that he saw the issue with water access and thus began Project Sheluka.

While we have provided several BSPs to Kalenge Village as well as the village school, the Kalenge Regional Health Clinic is located about 250 yards away and at an elevation too high above the water table to be served by a suction pump. Imagine a health clinic, either as a patient or provider, where the nearest water was 500 yards away.

While Project Sheluka is in the business of installing shallow suction pumps this was beyond our scope and finance. When a private donor heard of this situation funds were provided specifically to bring running water to the Clinic.

Aerial view of Kalenge Regional Health Clinic and Kalenge Village School. The School and Teacher Houses are supplied by a BSP. The Clinic is a bit higher than the school where the water table is too deep to use a suction pump.

Local drillers use a gasoline-powered pump to jet a mixture of water and bentonite (a expanding clay) down a steel pipe tipped with a simple paddle blade as a bit. The water pushes sand out of the borehole, the bentonite temporarily holds a 6“ borehole open as the bit and stem are advanced manually. Once the borehole completed, in this case 40’ deep, the drill stem and bit as removed and sections of 4” PVC pipe, with the lower section screened, are glued and dropped into the borehole until it reaches the bottom. By this time the bentonite has given up and the sand has collapsed around the PVC.

Water tank with Kalenge Village Regional Health Clinic left and Joy House right.

A solar-powered pump is lowered into the casing and connected to a control box (located in the Joy House), a solar array (mounted to the roof on the clinic) and a 750 gallon tank positioned on the top of a 15’ high steel stand. The control box is connected to the power and a float in the tank. When the water drops to a certain level the pump kicks on to top up the tank. There are three taps connected to the tank, one each for the clinic, the Joy House and the Volunteer House. The Kalenge Village Regional Health Clinic now has running water!