Uhhhhhhhhhhh Hah, Uhhhhhhhhhh Hah, Uhhhhhhhhh Hah as the stump went up a long, breathy Uhhhhhhh came out of Mr. Gallose’s gut. As the tree stump slams down on the steel rod well casing a short guttural Hah bursted out of his mouth, like a tribal working chant, Gallose sings out the lifting and the dropping of the stump to his workers and the workers chant back. The lifting and lowering of the ~100 lb. stump is just as interesting as the drilling. Gallose rigs up a tripod over the well site and he uses a pulley, a very thick long rope, along with up to 10 villagers to pull the stump up into the air on the long Uhhhhhhhhhhh, the short Hah is Gallose’s signal to release the tension off of the rope allowing gravity and men’s hands release and help slam the stump onto the casing. Gallose uses his whole upper body to guide the stump as it hits the top of the metal pipe at the same time as he uses his muddy bare feet to hold the metal pipe in place at the ground level. At times he is sitting waste deep in mud in the middle of the shallow hand-dug pit as he guides the casing into the ground.

 

As I watch, I learn a new definition for team work and man power, as all able bodied men from the village get involved, seamlessly trading off the job of pulling either the stump or metal rods up into the air every 30 minutes or so allowing everyone to take a rest so that nobody gets too tired in the hot desert sun. The man power trade-offs occur on the Huh down cycle and runs so seamlessly that the rhythm of the cadence never stops… the drilling continues on for hours pausing only momentarily to switch the rope back and forth between the pipe and the stump. Gallose takes the rope off his stump and securely ties the metal rods that he used to drill the well. Mr. Gallose flushes the dirt out of the hollow pipe by pouring water into the pipe and using suction and the water to slowly pull the mud out of the ground. He adds more casing to the end of the pipe as the pipe slowly sinks into the ground. Only stopping when it is time for the whole village to go to the Mosque and say their prayers, or drink some tea and “manga” – eat some homemade sun baked flat bread with a mixture of beans, tomatoes and spices. Hours and hours go by and the same chant is sung out again and again as the metal rod slowly sinks into the ground. Mr. Gallose uses his whole body to drill a well, from his voice, lungs and breathing, to his knees, muscles in his legs, bare feet, arms, back and stomach. The group works together like a machine slowly drilling through the Nile alluvium finding groundwater for the local village in the desert. Mr. Gallose is able to sink 10 meters of a well into the ground in a day. His wells are up to 36 meters deep but more commonly around 10 to 20 meters deep.

 

Using his past knowledge of the depth of water in the region, Mr. Gallose sinks the hole to a specific depth. Then he checks the well by putting a hand pump onto the pipe to see what if anything comes up, keenly observing how much water is coming out of the well. Once he is satisfied with the quantity of water, Mr. Gallose pulls out all of the casing, pipe by pipe and screws a screen onto the bottom of the pipe. He pours rock salt into the well to break up the clay that coats the screen and screws each length of pipe onto the pipe column as the village workers maintain and then slowly lower the pipe into the ground. Once the pipe is at the bottom of the well, Mr. Gallose switches the rope back to the stump and the team forcefully pounds the screened casing into the solid sediment for another 3 to 5 meters.

 

Once the well is drilled it is time to clean the mud and drill cuttings from the bottom of the well. This process is called developing a well. A properly developed well allows for the well to produce more water. The cleaning of a well is just as interesting to watch, learn from and photograph as the drilling process. Mr. Gallose uses the same tripod, rope and metal rod casing that he used to drill the well. He takes his stump off of the rope and securely ties the metal rods that he used to drill the well to the rope. Mr. Gallose primes “his pump” by pouring water into the pipe and quickly puts his hand over the pipe as it is raised to create a suction which holds the water in the pipe column. This concept is the same as putting a finger on the top of a straw in a glass of water. As the straw is raised from the glass, the suction holds the water in the straw. Using basically the same method and cadence, the same group of villagers now raises and lowers the pipe. The only difference is that the group keeps a bit of tension on the rope as the pipe is lowered. On the raising of the pipe, Gallose uses his hand as a stopper on the top of the rod to create suction, holding the water in the metal rod column. As the pipe is lowered back into the well Mr. Gallose slowly releases his hand allowing the water and dirt to squirt across his palm. Gallose once again uses gravity to create the water pressure and regulate the water pressure on the Huh down stroke by slowly releasing the palm of his hand. Using this ancient technique, Mr. Gallose is able to clean a 30 meter well better than the Egyptian Geological Survey drillers that were hired using a modern truck mounted drill rig to drill and produce a well.

 

At the end of each day, Mr. Gallose, strips out of his dirty wet clothes, cleans up and puts on his clean Galabeiya and prepares to go home to see his wife and family. When Mr. Gallose is finished drilling a village water well, he places a hand pump onto the well casing, primes the pump with water and demonstrates the well’s high yield to its new happy owners. During his demonstration, Gallose always tastes the water (despite the salt) in front of the villagers to see if it is potable. When asked where he learned his drilling technique, Mr. Gallose humbly told me that drilling and producing wells has been a family trade for generations. The knowledge has been passed down from grandfather to father to son to grandson. The villagers really respect Mr. Gallose and his ability to find water and have recommended that we use his services when we need to set a pump, create a water drain, drill or clean a monitoring well. Our Hierakonpolis Temple-Town research group has hired Mr. Gallose numerous times throughout the years to help us clean over 10 to 15 meters of silt out of our 30 meter deep monitoring wells located around Hierakonpolis Temple-Town and ancient “fort” archeological sites located near Edfu, Egypt.