Every Day is World Water Day

First published by Dipesh Pabari, Operations Manager at Camps International in Kenya. 22nd March 2012

Providing Water Security for local communities has always been a core objective for Camps International and there is always some project ongoing across our locations. It’s World Water Day today and we would like to use this day to highlight some of the work we are doing in Borneo,Cambodia and Kenya. As part of our long term objectives for the Camps International Foundation, we have decided to committ ourselves to increasing our water conservation and security program across our locations. And like everything else, the first commitment is to ensure we are doing as much as we can within our camps and that everyone who travels with us understands the importance of conserving water. Everyone of us needs to do our bit. So to everyone out there, we would like to ask two things:

1. Please use water in camps conservatively and remember in our parts of the world, a flushing toilet or a shower everyday is a luxury. We will continue to do our best to put recycling systems in place as we have done in many of our camps but every single drop counts.

2. If anyone is interested in helping towards our various water security projects, please do make a donation through the Camps International Foundation and specify it is for water projects. We guarantee 100% of any donations through the foundation will be earmarked for projects.

CAMP BORNEO

There are serious issues with water onMantanani due to the isolated and delicate nature of the island which has a unusually high water leading to both the benefit of close water access for the inhabitants but also the high than normal risk of the water table becoming contaminated by outside pollutants.

Our efforts at water conservation and protection on the island are twofold, and incorporate practical and educational elements.

At Camp Mantanani itself we already have a water catchment/rainwater harvesting system  which feeds our toilets and garden. We will soon be installing a grey water recycling system using a sand filter process that will both increase the available water storage and also limit the impact of gray water on the water table.

At our landmark project on the island, the Kindergarten next to the primary school, we will be installing a rain water harvesting system also and will be using this to help introduce water management and permaculture ideals to the local community alongside our other marine conservation and permaculture education programmes.

CAMP CAMBODIA

In Beng Mealea, our water management programme also encompasses bothour own camp, in an effort to limit our own impact and be more sustainable and also live by the standards we teach, as well as the projects we are working on.

At the camp we have limited our water usage by constructing waterless composting toilets. Alongside these all other water use in the camp is fed into our grey water leech field which, recycles the grey water and uses the run off to feed our Permaculture orchard feeding papaya and banana trees.

Of our water management projects in Beng Mealea, the most urgent is at the local high school which has very little water storage despite having four large classroom blocks available for water capture. At the moment only one out of eight available sloping roofs is used for water capture, which is fed to a 15k litre concrete tank that we refurbished in 2011. Before this tank was repaired the only available water source for the entire school of 600 children was a large pond which was empty during the dry season and barely drinkable during the rainy season.

Roofs like this can catch A LOT of water

We aim to install water catchment on the remaining 7 sloping roofs and build a new ablutions block to replace the one current toilet they have to help limit the natural waste polluting the current pond.

CAMP KENYA

This year, we have just undertaken a technical assessment and plan (thank you GreenWater!) to recycle all shower water at our main camp in Muhaka to the proposed Trust House vocational school we are building. Water from the showers will go through a natural cleaning system and this july, we will be constructing a large pond which will act as the main water source for the farm. Additionally, we are starting the graywater recylcing system which will be ready for the summer at Camp Kaya. Water from your showers, will be recycled back to the toilets for flushing and extra water will go through a natural filter and be a reservoir for the new tree nursery at the forest

Plan for graywater at Camp Muhaka

This year alone in Kenya we have been very fortunate to receive additional donations that have allowed us to completely overhaul the water catchment system at Muhaka Dispensary. I

can’t thank the 2011 Nurse team (a.k.a Kenya Gappers) who raised approximately £2500 which was enough funds to change all the roofs at the dispensary, paint them with a special protective paint, put in new gutters, and put in two new tanks at the dispensary. The dispensary now has over 15,000lts of water storage facilities. We also recieved a small donation from the Herbert family which used to buy additional gutters and install one more 1000lt tank at Imani Women’s Group.

That’s just a snippet of what is happening at the moment and we know we can do so much more. We just received a video made by Vineel who travelled to Kenya for three months last year. He raised an additional fund which was used to provide a water source to a local nursery school at Muhaka. The video below really sums up how every little drop counts and yes, every penny will save another drop…

Day 3 Marrakech - Imlil - Refuge Toubkal

After another cracking breakfast at Ksar Anika we boarded a rather spacious wagon for the 1.5 hour drive to Imlil . Imlil is the starting village for any treks into the Toubkal region and is perched on the edge of the hills at 1700 metres. Bizarely i recognised the second village where our guide lived. Making me feel old i realised i had been here 18 years before on my gap year. There are lots of hostels to stay at but the one that really screams magnificence is the kasbah Toubkhal. A Scholes like Berber hotel  standing out about 200ft above the rest of Imlil on its own precipice. This would be the ideal place to spend the night prior to climbing to adjust to the 1200 metre altitude difference between Imlil and Marrakech. 

We were greeted by our guide Abdullah and porter/chef/donkey driver who made us feel very welcome and answered all our queries. Being the organised people we are we hadn't packed any crampons so had to hire some from the village shop, according to Abdullah "not the wisest move, in Africa we don't make good crampons."

Perot the donkey porter

The Temperature was around 20 degrees in the sun and having packed several layers we ended up walking the whole day in just thermal top and bottoms with a t shirt on top. The route is blessed with sunshine for almost all of its 16kms. The first 2 hours are fairly basic footpaths climbing steadily towards sidi Charmouch a shrine to the mountain. This is where we stopped for the first of husseins fantastic fodder with mackerel, salad and bread. Along the way there are several little shops offering the last chance to buy and scarves or even jewellery. Just in case you hadn't had the chance in Marrakech. These all offer assorted soft drinks and of course endless bottled water. The refuge was another 3 hours up the mountain following a well beaten path with occasional snowy patches. The proper snow came at about 2900 metres but was not difficult to walk on without crampons and you can actually see the refuge for some time so have a good target to end the day on. Including stops it took us 6 hours to get to the refuge but then i walk very slowly. Abdullahs record is 2 hours and there are several annoying people who a Actualy run past you and back during your struggle. 

Finally someone tells Fran where to go

The refuge appears looking like a lift stop in the alps without any lift and sans frites and vino. It does however cater for lots of groups and we thinks there must have been 40/50 people in there that night. There is wood burner in the main room and several dining areas all clean cosy. There are 4 dormitories each with giant bunked layouts so you plonk your bag down and grab a thick blanket from The chef de refuge and bobs your uncle your home. It's pretty chilly outside once the sun has gone in at 5 ish so the door is kept shut. Once again hussein produced the goods, I foolishly had five bowls of soup only to discover the second course was a full blown lamb tagine and a bonus plate of spag Bol. I was in heaven! 

The refuge from below, you then head up the sharp face on the left of photo.

The bedroom was another thing altogether though with torches constantly shining this was and that and the archetypal Frenchman who opened the door and then walked off for half an hour. Needless to say the temperature was below freezing but bearable thanks to the bodyheat of others and the overpowering smell of the unwashed. Some of these guys were staying for four nights and I can tell you the showers were not well used.

The lovers embrace.
www.rjseven.com is the company we used to climb Toubkal.

Day 2 Marrakech, shopping! Builders Tea

Frazzle decides the best way to keep quiet and not wake me is to brush her teeth in bed with an electric toothbrush. I am soo happy we are on holiday and nothing changes, remind me to do the same. A quick chat with one of the staff through the door results in the following diplomatic behaviour from fraz.

"good morning"
"is there any chance of some tea please?"
"Moroccan tea?"
"No normal tea thanks!"

Don't know about you but Moroccan tea is kind a national institution and would be normal rather than pg tips

The cemetery

Shopping with fran was as usual all the fun of the fair. We had a guide book recommended by the Telegraph with 7 walks that cover the city. 1 walk a day would  be enough however we managed to cover no's 1,3,4 5 my legs are gone or a good warm up for tomorrow? We ended up buying several handbags, two poufs and a few bowls. No partridge in a pear tree.

We are now sunbathing on the roof or rather Aphrodite is and I'm being English.

Looking forward to the lamb tagine tonight followed by an early start to head off to the mountain which are suitably snowy looking from here.

Day 1 Morocco, Mararakech, Ksar Anika

Flight EA1411 was remarkable in many ways and everything you might expect from the worlds cheapest airline and more. The plane couldn't take off for half an hour because the staff had done a miscount and had to ask passengers to announce the missing names in Arabic (lutons finest aren't exactly linguists. We took off half an hour LATE but arrived half an hour EARLY, nuts i know!
Marrakech airport looked stunning and we prepared for the usual international hub queue's in immigration. The gods were smiling on us and after a brief wait at the back of the longest queue a plain clothes magician/official pointed us to the diplomatic passport queue with a grunt EMPTY!
To round of this magnificent display of efficiency our bags were already on the turntable and 12 minutes after the doors opened we were in the arrivals hall looking for our man from Marrakech. We can forgive him turning up a few minutes late as we weren't even meant to be in morocco yet. Our driver Mohammed then whisked us away in a brand new Toyota land cruiser with more space than business class on Emirates. All in all a welcome change to airline travel anywhere else in the world.

Our hotel ksar Anika proved its security on arrival, the security guard took 5 minutes to open the door. Made very welcome with Moroccan tea on arrival the porter wanted us to relax after such a stressful time at the airport. Alas we had to inform him that we were indeed early And the airport had been a breeze and that a gin and tonic would not go amiss. As with all things too good to be true the hotel has one minor flaw. There is no gin! I asked for a beer?There is no beer! We were then offered white wine! There was no white wine! At last a bottle of fine red wine appeared. It appears a group of 20 English have left this morning having drained this quarter any liquid with alcohol in.

Our room is huge and unfortunately we have destroyed it already. Fran has pulled part of the loo wall off ans our clothes make a nice Moroccan carpet feature. After a lovely dinner including my personal favourites a mezzo of stewed oboe rhinos and two other types of vegetable based goo and a bowl of olives. The chicken taggine however was delightful and much to my taste. Fran of course is in heaven.

We ventured out as all tired idiots do on their first night in a strange town. After 5 minutes casually strolling down dark alleys the lovely security guard from the hotel appeared on a bike to escort us to the square. He actually gave the wife a little bollocking for carrying an open bag at 11pm down dark streets at least that's what I understood. A quick check of handbag city and we decided to refresh the thirst and hailed a horse drawn cab to the la mamounia the old palace refurbed into one of the most opulent hotel in the world containing the Churchill rooms and amazing furniture bands and bars.after the largest vodka martini in the world we headed home to prepare for shopping day.aaaaargh.