I Am Such A Nerd.

Though you never stop learning, I swore off graduate education once I graduated UC Davis with my Bachelors degree. However, today, I found myself in a classroom. And I LOVED it!!!!!!!!

I'm not a complete sellout as my classroom is a Tongan Fale (pronounced: fall-A) of sorts and has no windows. We have brownies and coffee during class, snack on oranges, limes and liliquoi from the ATV and praise God for all the cool ways the world works. Like water. How is it that Hydrogen, you know, as gaseous element, plus a couple oxygen, you know, another gaseous (and actually toxic to breathe in it pure form) can combine to make water, the single most important thing to LIFE?

Today was the first day of class for a Water Technology seminar taught by a mixture of folks that are involved in different aspects of water sanitation and hygiene organizations. Justice Water and Water For Life are two of the organizations we will hear from as well as some of the students that have been trained prior.

I am such a nerd. I loved all the nerdy talk on elements and their positive and negative charges, how water attracts so much to it because of its molecular structure, and how there are different mechanical and chemical things you can use to clean up water. All of a sudden I wish I was back at Davis my freshman year with the chance to stick with that Chemistry 2A class and stick with my biology major. But then again, I wouldn't be where I am today if I had. Nonetheless, my brain was engaged and my heart was happy to be hearing about all sorts of things.

Moringa tree, see the pods? 

Today we learned the word floculant. Actually, I already knew the word because I have been researching Moringa, the tree I've told you about that has a bunch of fantastic nutrients and could potentially alleviate malnutrition and remedy hundreds of diseases and disorders. Anyway, today we focused on using the seeds from the seed pods (see picture at right) on the trees to essentially strain any solid matter from the water. If you crush the seeds after pulling off the husk (very quick and easy) and put it into dirty water, all the solid matter suspended in the water will collect and fall to the bottom once the clusters get heavy enough. So cool! It does NOT however, purify water. It simply removes the chunky stuff. Water will still need to be boiled, left in the sun for UV radiation, or sent through a BioSand filter.

After just 15 minutes, notice the color difference.

The next two weeks of class will cover more technical info on water sanitation as well as the basics to concrete work. We will be repairing a couple water catching tank that have cracks or leaks in the ATV and we might maybe build a latrine (nice word for toilet) or a sink basin.