A Lesson in Appropriate Technology

 

Using a bamboo trough to show water only
runs downhill.

My background in soil and water conservation might be said to boil down to managing water on the land. It wasn’t too much of a stretch then, to adapt US style water management to Karen villages in the mountains of Thailand but in fact, we had no real education, training or background in international development work. So, we did what reading we could to get up to speed on the current thinking and the buzz word of the day seemed to be “Appropriate Technology”.

The AI Overview on Google says appropriate technology “prioritizes technologies that are small-scale, affordable, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, and environmentally sound” as well as “community based”. Of course, the history of international development work around the world is littered with projects, programs, tools, equipment, etc. that didn’t work because they were inappropriate. For example, electric water pumps might be sent to remote villages where there was no electricity. Or, gas powered pumps might be sent to remote areas where gasoline was hard to get and/or no one knew how to maintain the pump. So the pump might be useful until it broke down, then no one knew how to fix it and there was no real way to transport it to town for repair. So the pump sat unused until it rusted away.

Digging a new irrigation ditch. Oh Loh Tha
Village in 1985

The Irrigation Project we were joining was certainly appropriate. Irrigating paddy fields for rice production and installing gravity fed village water systems were nothing new. If irrigated rice paddy fields could be developed or improved, then some village families might be able to move away from slash and burn rice production. But, building the dams and digging irrigation ditches could well be more than a family or even several families together could do on their own.  So, the Irrigation Project could hire additional labor to make the project possible.

Women and children carried water to the
village, often using sections of bamboo
as this woman is doing.

Village water systems were valued especially by the women and children in the Karen villages as it was their job to carry water from the local spring or water source to the village. In some cases, the water source could be quite far away involving a serious climb in at least one direction. Having even a few faucets available within the village opened the door for improved bathing opportunities, toilets, vegetable gardens as well as making life easier. The Irrigation Project could help supervise the building of water tanks, help purchase the needed PVC pipes and supervise the construction.

Even an outdoor spigot was a big improvement
 over hand carrying water

To assure the community was truly behind the project, whether pipelines or irrigation systems, the village was required to pay a portion of the cost and who ever benefitted was to provide as much labor as they could. The project also promoted things like growing coffee as a cash crop, trying out a form of contour farming on sloping land, and providing vegetable seeds for home gardens, and nutritional training.

To carry out the project, there was a team of Karen workers, some based in Chiang Mai and others in
strategic villages.  All travelled widely throughout their areas making the project known, designing whatever system was needed, and working with the village to supervise the construction.

Some of the best workers had been through the agricultural training at what was then called the Center for the Uplift of the Hilltribes in a program initiated by Dick Mann. What these workers might lack in formal, Thai based education, they more than made up for in practical, local, hands-on experience, training, instincts and ability. Plus, being local and Karen they knew the villages, the people, the language and were already recognized as village and church leaders. It was really their project and they made it work.

While the transit didn't catch on
hand held levels were used
sometimes.

My own experience in managing water was in the very northeast corner of Ohio where it is flat. Very flat! Foundational to managing water is figuring out which direction the water is flowing. And, since water only flows downhill, I spent my first several years out of college trying to figure out which end is up (and therefore, which end is down). It wasn’t always very obvious and sometimes, downright deceiving (think of those tourist spots where things apparently roll uphill). So, I came to Thailand very dependent on using a transit (level) to determine elevations and to determine where water might flow and where it would not.

Early in our time in Chiang Mai, I made gallant attempts to teach some of our workers the glories of the surveying transit. Sigh! It never caught on. For one thing, unlike northeast Ohio, generally in the mountains of Northwest Thailand, there isn’t a lot of question about which end is up and the math involved in using a transit wasn’t easy for people with little to no formal education.

In cases where there might be a question about whether the water source is high enough in elevation to supply a village, our workers would generally run a water hose and/or dig quick trenches to see if the water would flow or not. Alas, my transit lessons had run afoul of the principal of appropriate technology and my transit likely lays abandoned and covered in dust in some obscure and forgotten closet. I’d feel worse, but I suppose the whole term “Appropriate Technology” likewise lies abandoned and dusty in some historical closet replaced by some new term describing the same concept.