After a tip from my colleague Mazen, I drove down to Jericho and the village An Nuwei’ma, both in the Jordan valley. We have two projects here, and I wanted to take some photos. In Jericho it was easy enough, we are reinforcing the side of the Wadi (dried out river bed) to protect the sides of it from erosion. When the winter rains comes, sudden and powerful flash floods sweeps through the wadi threatening nearby houses.

 

In An Nuwei’ma, we are extending a water network to include this village. Until now, they have been relying on open water canals, which are not enough, does not go up to the houses and suffers from extensive water losses. They are also easily polluted by live stock as well as man. A typical example was to be seen when I arrived; a man was butchering a goat just by the little canal, up-streams from where villagers collect their drinking water. It was of course convenient for him to wash the meat, intestines and knife in the flowing water. But not so nice to have the water polluted with the bacteria from the newly killed goat and its different body parts.

 

The photo is from here. The two young boys have just collected water, down-streams from the goat man. When our project is ready, the water will travel underground in insulated pipes all the way up to the individual houses, providing clean water in the tap. Pure magic!