We began the morning in the colonia doing three surveys in sector Ubence (the street just past Ubence's church on the left). We determined a much better method for completing as many surveys as possible and for taking advantage of the guys' time. Originally, we were going to each home as a group and Josh and McWane would have to sit and wait for Mercedes to finish the verbal survey, which took two to three times as long as the energy, trash, and water surveys. Instead, we selected 3 houses, and then went to each explaining what the process would entail. This way, the guys were able to go back without me and do what they needed to do. Fortunately, they have picked up enough Spanish since they've gotten here that they can express basic ideas. Mercedes was also able to provide them a few stock expressions that they can use to let people know what they needed when they knocked at the door. Not surprisingly, we have found that poorer homes tend to have less trash; we have also noticed that a lot of people burn their trash, plastic and all. Unaware that the chemicals in the plastic release into the air, most think they are doing the environment and their families a favor since the garbage is not going into the city dump or winding up in the streets or streams. We've tried to discourage this as much as possible. The surveys also afford us the opportunity to let people know if their water storage system is effective at preserving chlorine levels. We've run across a few houses with zero chlorine. By and large, these water samples come from containers that are not well sealed.
At 4pm, Mercedes went to a meeting with several Policarpo patronato leaders; the partronatos serve as a board of trustees for their colonia, working as link between the residents and the local government. Part way in, Shannon and McWane joined the meeting. The team got to learn about the patronato's goals for the community and to share some of their conclusions and plans. The meeting revealed that much of what we would like to do is in line with the patronato's plans. They indicated that English and computer classes are a priority, as is reforesting the main water passage through the colonia. The president indicated that she would like to line the path with fruit trees that all can pick from. She would like to name it the “Quebrada Milagrosa (the miraculous stream).” They are also interested in the idea of installing a few check dams. The patronato leaders had something a little different in mind. Where as we proposed small dams that would slow the water down and help to build up the silt behind them to reduce further erosion, the design they proposed was more like a stair step that would permit people to have a safe place to walk in the usually dry-sometimes flooding streambed, given how narrow the adjacent road is. We will evaluate their ideas to see if it can be incorporated into some type of effective erosion control structures.
Josh, McWane and Shannon met with Marvin, the water system manager, along with Henry and Enrique to go over the drinking water usage analysis we prepared. We compared the amount of water their 3 wells can produce verses the amount of water needed each day. We were able to show the water system needs to produce 10,000 gallons on some days and up to 25,000 gallons on other days, which means the well pumps have to run an average of 16 hours every day to keep up. The system delivers water to only a few neighborhoods in the colonia each day; a household currently gets water once every 8 days. The chlorine disinfectant added to the water usually dissipates in 5-6 days, leaving the remaining water in each household’s storage barrels at risk of contamination. We are assisting the water committee with planning a new well to be drilled this summer and further analyzing the capacity of their water pipe system, which will help achieve their goal of reducing the water delivery interval to every 3 days.
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