In the heat of the African summer in May 2006 we completed our first well to bring clean drinking water to a remote rural village living in poverty of approximately 300 people. The traditional method of obtaining groundwater in rural areas of the developing world, and still the most common, is by means of hand-dug wells.
However, because they are dug by hand their use is restricted to suitable types of ground, such as clays, sands, gravels and mixed soils where only small boulders are encountered. Some communities use the skill and knowledge of local well-diggers, but often the excavation is carried out, under supervision, by the villagers themselves.