A few months ago, one of the villagers purchased a water tank and strategically placed it under our co-workers' elevated water tank so as to collect the run-off that would shoot out once the high tank was full. But, this still required a little walk from the village to the tank.
Since arriving in the village, we have hoped that we could some day put in a well for the people. We knew from the outset that it would be a little bit of a puzzle. We didn't want to put in anything that required extra care or resources on the part of the people, for example, a motorized pump that required gas.
Best solution: a hand pump. But... That would take a while. We were able to order one online down here, but shipping is always an issue even to our base town itself, with it only being accessible by boat or plane, and with its postal service seeming to have a track record of letting its contract with the airline run out so all mail and packages HAVE to come by barge. During dry season, it is not uncommon for barges to run aground and have to wait for weeks until it rains and the river rises a little. We are learning that such is life, especially in the interior down here. We plan a good one to three months for anything that we order to get to our town, even though, if it could come by plane from the nearest big city it would just take a couple weeks at most!
Rather than spending a lot of money and time figuring out logistics for getting a work crew and machinery out to our village, Brian and Ed went at it by hand. Well, it was more like a "ram a pipe into the earth and pull it back up" method. Be forewarned, this is from my point of view, so you won't be getting so much of the technical terms and may have a laugh or two at my attempts at description.
After finding the suitable location on the edge of the village, the guys started with a post hole digger (I do know that term from my dad using one when I was growing up). Once that became too hard to maneuver, they used what I will call a homemade pipe digger. It is a piece of heavy metal pipe specially designed with a handle welded across the top and a metal flap in the bottom. This allowed dirt to enter as the pipe was rammed down into the hole, but not to escape as the pipe was brought back up and the dirt dumped out.
The pump is the newest attraction in the village. We've already had requests from nearby villages to come help them put wells in. People always ask how we did it and are surprised that we did it by hand. We'll see if it's as simple anywhere else.