Life of a Tanzanian Driller

Got some good first hand experience of the life of a TZ driller this past 2 weeks.
The first 3 bores we drilled were close to Gairo so it was a 10 min drive back down the road to the town. Then on Wednesday we moved to a village called Mshugi which is 12 km north of Gairo. Big deal you say! It took 8 hours for the drillers to get their trucks there. They use two trucks about 10 ton units I would guess. Tandem back wheels. One has the drill rig on it and the other is a support truck carrying the PVC pipe, water, sand, extra drill rods, shovels etc.
8 hours involved driving on these dirt roads whose condition deteriorates every km further you get from Gairo. It involves crossing 3 river beds which are sand here. One had water two were dry. The one with water had a drop down into it then a steep climb back up the other side on a uneven dirt/sand surface so traction was poor at best. They got stuck here big time in the sand. It took them 3 hours to dig themselves out and then redig them out again and again. They do know how to get these trucks unstuck I must say with no fancy tools. Just bags they fill with sand, any branches or small logs lying around, a log wire rope if the first truck gets thru and the 2nd gets stuck the first can pull it through some times. We help as we can but they are a hard working team. Then got stuck 3 more times before reaching the site.The drill truck has hydraulic feet on it which they lower down when drilling to take the weight off the wheels and importantly to level the truck so they are drilling vertically not on an angle. So they use this truck to go first. Originally this truck had 4 wheel drive and a third drive shaft and associated transfer box that they use to drive the hydraulics for the drilling mast. However this transfer box broke a while ago we hear, so now the truck has no 4 wd and when they want to use the hydraulics they have to get under the truck and disconnect the rear wheel drive shaft and connect in a shorter drive shaft to run the hydraulics. Then when they want to drive again they have to undo the hydraulics drive shaft and put in the wheels drive shaft. If the truck is in the middle of running river bed then they do it in the water as there is no option.
So when this rig truck gets stuck they use these hydraulic feet to jack the truck up off the ground, pack bags of sand under the wheels and then logs if possible to provide a drive path for the next meter or so to allow the truck to get some speed up if possible. It works most of the time.
The 2nd truck has no hydraulic feet so it goes 2nd and if it gets stuck they connect a long 1” wire rope to the first truck on the other side, and the stuck truck and then pull it through. This takes hours to do every time in many cases. They must be used to it as they just get out and get on with it without too much complaining at all, more joking with each other. They get covered in sand and water and mud when there is surface water around.
Due to the difficulty of getting the trucks around and no little support pick up available, the drillers just stay out on site. Cook their food over a charcoal cooker, no washing, little laundry, sometimes restricted water, a bed either in the truck seats or a piece of foam on the ground.
After finishing the first bore at Mshugi they were to move on Sat night to the second site for the village. Ramona and I left them to pack up the trucks and then leave. It was not too far away. On Sunday morning we drove back out there which takes even us an hour to go 12 km in the little Pajero across all the same dirt trails and river beds. It is so easy to get lost out there as the villagers just walk everywhere so there are dirt trails criss-crossing all over. We get about ¾ of the way there and come across them stuck in another river bed where they were not meant to be. Apparently some villager had given them some confusing directions. This time the support truck had gone first for some reason and it was a steep drop down into the sandy bed and a climb out the other side. It was stuck big time. They had gotten stuck the night before and had been up all night working to get it out as if you leave it to sit it gets even more stuck. So they were trashed by the time we got there. They were about ready to try to tow the support truck out backwards again with the rig truck. The wire rope is about 50 ft long. They did manage to pull the truck out, however the rig truck then stopped pulling and the truck being towed out backwards could not see that and he was racing the truck backwards to make sure he got up the incline before getting stuck again. He slammed into the rig truck big time. Wham! Luckily no damage done to the rig truck but the folded up mast hit the canopy frame on the support truck and bent it to heck. The rig truck drives up the road another 50 yards to clear out of the way. So we all get over that and then discuss where they really were meant to have gone. It was a narrow dirt road with maize crops either side making the ground soft. This means the trucks cannot turn around until they drive back up to the intersection a few 100 yards up the road. The rig truck is still about 50 yards away when the drive of the support truck starts to back his truck up again. He races back again and you could see what was going to happen. The drilling foreman and Ramona were running up the road chasing the support truck driving backwards. The driver was looking at the rear wheels to make sure he did not get off the dirt road so did not see them yelling and waving and WHAM again into the back of the rig truck. Two 10 ton trucks colliding at 20 mph, ouch. This time there was damage to the rig truck but only to some accessories and not the important parts. It is not even my equipment and I felt sick to the stomach to see this.
Having recovered from that bit of excitement, we continued on to the real site and got stuck again in the very next river bed about 5 mins away! This was dry sand so not too bad, only an hour or so to dig them out and change the drive shafts around again. At that point I said to the foreman, let’s take a ride in our Pajero to scout the rest of the route to this last distant well as I now have serious doubts about the trucks getting there. This we did and he decided quite quickly that I was right and so we abandoned that last position. The local villagers were meant to make it more accessible too but had done nothing so they now get left off the drilling schedule. We turned the trucks around to head back to a village closer to Gairo and immediately get stuck again in the river crossing we had just gotten them out of an hour before. Another hour or two for the drillers to dig themselves out and change the drive shafts around. I said to the foreman, let’s get them to site and take the rest of the day off as they must be exhausted by now. Which we did and they were grateful to find a big tree to park under in the shade and go to sleep.
That is a hard life.