Emails from South Africa
David South, president of Monolithic, recently received two emails from Rod Russell, Project Manager with Smart Homes Africa. According to Rod, two organizations, Sol-Nest and SmartHomes International, have teamed up to provide affordable housing to mine workers in the Copperbelt of Zambia, namely Solwezi Zambia. He wrote, “There is a 70 million housing unit shortage here and we are trying to do something about it.
“Just want to let you know how much we appreciate the water filter you sent. It works so well, and the water tastes so good. Our pump filters get clogged quickly and require a lot of man-hours. With your filter, we just fill the bucket in the morning and at night and have about ten gallons of filtered water every day – enough for the entire crew, and it tastes much better than water from the other pump filter we were using.
“Water is a huge issue,” Rod continued. “We have been gathering rain water and pump filtering it, but the filters clog and it takes a lot of time. The water from the river still looks like weak tea after we filter it. We have a well nearby now that we can get some semi-clean water from and your filter works great – tastes as good as the rainwater, which we are not getting anymore since rainy season is over.
“Your filter paid for itself within two days. We can’t afford to go buy water here. It’s expensive.”
About the project he is currently managing, Rod wrote, “We are doing well – have had a lot of political unrest but our shop is done, and we are building the first house this week with inventory we poured over the last few weeks.”
He concluded, “Solwezi, however, is a special slice of hell. It’s not fun. I’m in good with the management and other mines here, and we will definitely want to do a dome here when we go to next phase.”
Source: https://www.monolithic.org/water-filters/just-water-complete-bucket-system-does-good-job-in-africa