Pumping from the Mekong

As we head into rainy season, we decided to reflect back on the dry season this year and rainy season last year.  Rainy season normally runs from May until October but unfortunately last year we saw a very dry rainy season. This has had huge ramifications for our farm and the rest of the community who are often so reliant on rice farming. 

The villages usually do 2 rice harvests per year.  But this last year saw so little rain that most villages were lucky to get just one harvest.  This lack of growing and harvesting has created a rice shortage which means that more rice has had to be imported from Thailand, increasing the prices.

On our farm we have about 100 buffalo staying with us at the moment. They are quite greedy house guests as one buffalo can eat 30 kilos of food every single day (or about 10% of its body weight)! This means we need to provide a lot of grass for all of the buffalo which becomes more challenging when the water supplies are unreliable and depleted.

Now we come to the heroes of our story.

One of our co-founders, Steven, along with two incredibly hard working German volunteers, Tim and Frauke, and some of our farm staff carried the 50 kilo pump 200 metres down to the mighty Mekong river. This was back breaking work and they faced many setbacks along the way.

We had to have electricity run across the main road at the farm, all the way down to the water line in order to use said pump.  That was no easy feat as it had to be run through the woods after being hooked up to our transformer, across the road.  We needed the electricity company to come out to do this for us, after hiring day workers to help Tim dig holes for the poles so we could make sure the line went exactly where we needed it.

Steven unwittingly donated blood during this enterprise, which ended up in 3 stitches with no anesthetic.  We feel your pain Steven!  Due to ingenious engineering and dedication there was celebration on our farm as the much needed water began to flow down the 350 metre long pipe and onto our farm into the pond at the cafe!  From there it was diverted with more pipes and smaller pumps to lead out either directly onto the fields of grass or into other ponds to be used further away from the Mekong. Well done guys!

We wish this was the least of our problems now!