Dispatch 4: Running Water

The big accomplishment of Thursday, after the gut-busting labor of finishing the floor, was getting the misting system installed. Using a lot of black plastic tubing, a small submersible sump pump, and a plastic tool-box outfitted with timers and controls, the team created an inexpensive ($200) and efficient system to draw water from the three large cisterns behind Roopchand's house, which hold the rainwater he collects from his roof. The line feeds misting sprinklers that are spaced the length of the twin propagation beds, where cocoa cuttings will be started in a sandy mix. Misting, Mark says, is a key element in propagating cuttings, because these shoots initially have no roots. After thirty days of nurturing in the moist, protected beds, they grow enough root to be transplanted into soil-filled bags and set on benches at the other end of the greenhouse, to grow and harden for another two months or so before they are ready to be planted outside.

At 3:30, everything was set for a test. Someone threw the switch and soon two sets of five sprinklers were misting beautifully, creating small rainbows in the sunlight. "I'm relieved," Carter told me later. "I've set up systems like this at home, but I had my doubts. It works just fine." Still, he said, this is only the first step. The second, a drip irrigation system for watering the bagged seedlings, will be tougher. It will require a water pressure of 12-15 psi, piddling compared to the 40 psi gush of American taps, but not so easy for a little bit of gravity and a small pump. It would take a 30-foot column of water — twice again the height of Roopchand's elevated tanks & to achieve that pressure by gravity alone.

The real triumph today, judging from reactions, was that by adding a single T-connector and a bit of extra tubing to the greenhouse line Mark and the crew were able to bring running water into the Baschk house — up to the second floor, where the living quarters are. After eight years of lugging buckets up the stairs, the sight of water flowing from her kitchen tap brought Sheri to tears.