Monday night was one of our colleague’s (from the Polytechnic) After delays in the project, we seem to have finally gotten off the ground, and we met early Tuesday morning to go to the Bangwe township’s Ntopwa village with the Dean of Engineering at the Polytechnic University. When there, we were able to visit three different sites of water collection. The first was a traditional looking well, lined with brick, covered, about four meters deep. This was at a specific house and seemed to be the least turbid water. The second was a dug shallow well in the ground, less than a meter deep. This water was extremely turbid, meaning the moringa seed had good potential to improve the quality. The third site was also a dug shallow well, but about 1-2 meters deep and of less turbidity. After collection, we ran tests for pH, conductivity, turbidity, and biological tests as well (to determine both the presence of coliforms/e. coli as well quantitative information).

Ideally, a water source that has high turbidity as well as E. coli count would be the best source to use for moringa seed testing, as it is supposed to greatly reduce turbidity and biological contaminants. The second well was chosen for this reason. It was the most turbid and had large enough quantities of E. coli and non-fecal coliforms that the effectiveness of moringa seed could be tested.

The moringa seed would be tested in different dosages (50mg/L, 100mg/L, and 250mg/L), as a powder, as a pre-mixed solution, and for different lengths of time (1hr, 2hr, 5hr, and 10hr). The 2hr and 5hr tests would be run on Wednesday, while the 1hr and 10hr tests would be run on Thursday. Ideally, all would be done on the same day, but with limited equipment and the amount of time involved, we knew we would have to split the tests across two days, adjusting with separate control values.

I was unable to attend the collections and testing both days because of sickness, but Isabel took charge of the lab work. Once all the results are in (12:30am Friday night), the best dosage, type of dosage, and amount of time can be determined.