We want a way to distill water ourselves to ensure a plentiful, reliable supply so that we can run laboratory tests so that we can provide good care to our patients. I know that we can buy an electric still here in Tanzania, but the problem is that it uses a lot of electricity. We get electricity from Tanesco (the state-owned power company), but it's expensive and often unavailable. We've had at least one outage per day for the past four days running. We can also use our nice, new generator, but that uses diesel fuel, which is expensive and often unavailable. (About half the time I try to buy gasoline, there isn't any.) We also have some solar panels, but they are overworked as it is (4 kW capacity for a clinic, an inpatient ward, a lab, and five houses).
My number one solution so far is solar distillation. Solar stills seem relatively simple, don't use any electricity, and could easily produce enough distilled water to meet our needs. The problem is that I don't know of anybody who makes them in Tanzania. You can buy them in the US, but then getting it here would expensive and difficult to do without breaking the glass.
I did some reading on the Internet, and I don't see why I can't just build one myself. After all, kids make them for seventh grade science projects. I reckon that puts it only slightly above my technical expertise (I'll ask a grown up to help me with the power tools). I found some simple designs, and also this cool-looking design by Gabrieli Diamante. I would love to try the latter, but I can't find the designs, despite the project supposedly being open-source. I also think I would need some outside help to make the Diamante design work.
The critical thing I don't know is if the solar distillers will make pure enough water for our batteries and lab equipment. I could use some help on this one. If anyone knows anyone who knows anything about solar distillation or laboratory distilled water standards, please send them the link to this post or my contact information.
My resources to work on this project are:
1. Me
2. Dr. Frank's very nice set of power tools
3. Access to basic construction materials.
4. Probably not very much money.
5. Sugru!
In other news, it turns out that my pretty princess palace (read mosquito net) is not scorpion-proof. I woke up last night with fairly severe, right-sided chest pain radiating to my neck, jaw, arm and wrist. I thought it might be a spider bite, but I couldn't find any marks or bumps or discoloration. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I took some ibuprofen and went back to sleep. When I was making my bed this morning, I found this little guy:
It felt like I'd been stung by a wasp, except that wasp venom dissipates after a few minutes. The pain from the scorpion sting decided to hang around, talk about old times and maybe stay for dinner. It took about two hours before it dulled enough for me to fall asleep again.
In the morning I caught him with a Frisbee to show to the family. For those of you who have been wondering about this, I can definitively report that upside down Frisbees will not restrain an angry scorpion. He (or she) got out, and I had to apply lethal force with a Michael Ondaatje novel. If anyone's interested in scorpions and can identify it from this picture, I would love to know what type it is.
UPDATE: on the problem of medication ports and IV tubing. I'm trying to work out a deal with Medshare and generous reader in Atlanta so that we can get these supplies shipped to volunteers who are coming to FAME.
UPDATE: on the problem of disappearing keys. We've found some giant carabiners to attach to the most important ones.
BONUS PREVIEWS: I'm going to start in on that biopsy microscope I mentioned in a previous post, and tomorrow is the big market day in Karatu.
What about the Slingshot (water vapor distillation system). Are those out and available yet?
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