The Inauguration Party

We set the date 4 weeks ago and on Sunday, July 26th we celebrated.

The Aqueduct Project of Quebrada Mina is officially closed. The hard work of planning, designing, constructing, and trouble-shooting is over. The community has a sound water system, the Committee has new responsibilities, and there was a lot of food and chicha (dulce) to celebrate it!


Every family contributed several pounds of rice, chicken, celery, potatoes, carrots, garlic, coffee, sugar, and ... to prepare all of this, no one had to carry a single jug of water up from the river.


A lot of cooking and cleaning needed to be done to get ready - that included everyone and everything!


The celebration began with formal words from the Water Committee. The Master of Ceremonies, Secretary of the Directive, Miguel Mora introduced all of the speakers and provided closing remarks:


The distinguished guests: the PC director of the Environmental Health Sector, a neighboring volunteer, a visitor from the States, and of course, Beligo Kudobu shared praise and enthusiasm for the water feats and community achievements. Thanks to Tim, there are great photos to share as well!

And before the meal was served and the dancing began, the Committee had some gifts to administer to the Peace Corps Volunteer:

Did I just say there was dancing? Oh yes; don't let them fool you, the Ngabe have a great sense of style and appreciate Tipico as deeply as Americans do Rock-and-Roll. The dancing, plus the party favors and chicha, lasted until dusk, when we simply ran out of light to see where to put our feet.

Great party!

Water!

We've had several weeks of great weather and lots of enthusiasm to finish the aqueduct system. The main line and all of the house connections are buried now but the most important news is that water is flowing. No air blocks or problems with the flow of water; every house has water running through the faucets. The volume of water is also excellent - the rainy season is well underway (and will grow in intensity until it hammers the Comarca full-force in October).

I anticipated this blog to include photos from the inauguration party... but that is scheduled for July 26th. So here's a photo-update of the latest work.
Line 2 stretches away from the tank dipping down between the mango trees. Where the slope rises up to Saturnino's house, we've installed a reduction to transition from a 2" to a 1.5" line. Out of view is the summit of the tallest hill lying between the tank and the last house and the point where the 1.5" reduces to 1" diameter tubes: the bulk of the system depends on 1-inch lines.

There has already been talk about where some new houses will go, so tees have been strategically placed along likely connection points. This futuristic outlook is a healthy sign that the water committee is considering how it will accommodate changes once the system is inaugurated. It is a critical time to train the community and committee because now the point is to transition ownership from me (the volunteer) to the committee. They will be their own service provider once I'm gone.

Only 2.5 meters below the water tank, Milton's house is located at an important bend in the mainline. Just like we connected the long Line 1, we stopped at mid-day and conducted the anticipated "prueba de agua." It's sort of like an after-lunch surprise... Here is the result:The answer to the question was:
Yes! Yes, there is water running here!

I was mostly worried that there hadn't been enough time for the pvc glue to dry - but after the anticipation to know for sure if the hill summit was going to stone-wall the flow, we were all happy to see that water was gushing to through Milton's patio only 15-minutes after the main valve was opened up.

We bought some expensive cable (total of 300ft so a relatively pricey investment) to use where the lines cross dry and full-running quebradas. These are delicate points in the system and also points of head-loss, so it was a great photo-op when we saw the last house connection:
Just 2 days later we connected the short, 1/2" line to a faucet. Now Milna's house, the last on Line 2 has was flowing plus an emergency clean-out valve.

What drives all this hard work?
Goodwill? Goalsetting? Need? Enthusiasm? Curiosity?
Well, yes, those things count. But also... food!

So what work remains?
Now we're in the trouble-shooting phase.
There are still some valve boxes to construct, threads that need more teflon, another layer of white cement for the tank, and applying some text: "Quebrada Mina, abril 2009" to the tank face.

Soon, there will be inauguration photos to share: I promise!

Project: Aqueduct

We´ve entered the final stages of construction:

2 Springboxes [Check]

1 Water Tank [Check]

3 Suspension bridges [2 ya hecho]

2000 Feet of trenches [1/4 ya hecho]

1 Inauguration Party [pronto]

-------------------------[to be continued]-------------------------

Project: Aqueduct

The rainy season has held off and, thank goodness!
The window of unexpected weather allowed the technician and community work teams of Quebrada Mina to construct the foundations of the new water system. We had 4 weeks of relatively rain-free weather and now there are 2 spring boxes and a beautiful 3,000 gal tank to boast about.
Mixing concrete in the shade - maybe the better task to have! The massive tarp we bought to protect our work from "aguaceros" served better as it offered the shadiest and coolest place to be during the hot afternoons. Better to mix than to pour!

Of the 23 households, workers cycled through the week to be sure that each day there were at least 4 assistants available to help the technician with construction.
Nicolas pours the marginal base of the water tank - a multi-step project that later involved much rebar and cement blocks.

And the springboxes? For our purposes, "box" is a misnomer. With water seeping out of the friable clay soil from "qualquier lado," a concrete box would do little to protect the spring quality and natural flow. Our technician has devised a way to channel and cap springs that seep and often wander - the result is a concrete-and-rock mosaic with snorkels.

The Before:
Miguel Mora looks on as I point out: "Here, here, and here are places where water is trying to flow - this is good! Our mud has a lot of water in it!"

The After:A professional springbox model: note the paucity of mud.

The next few weeks will be busy with water line connections and trenches to dig. Give us a few more weeks and we'll be "pau hana," "ya listo," "done and dusted," and "all set" to celebrate the end of the grand water system project. More photos will follow!

Project: Aqueduct Design

We're ready to go! The Water Committee of Quebrada Mina has finished the final phase of planning and surveying, so we're ready to write proposals and look for some funds.

Over the last 13 months, the committee has been meeting with me and poco-a-poco gearing up to construct a water system that will provide for 23 families. Qda. Mina isn't far from my Calabazalian's, so it has been easy to visit them and plan out how we can bring water to this little Ngabe village.

The final surveying of the area has just taken place: several days were needed to measure everything. For instance, a full day was needed to measure the path of the water lines from the springs to the potential tank area; another day was needed for the primary main line while another was needed for the second main line branch; even more time was needed to figure out how we can get PVC tubes to run up and down and around a sizeable hill... hmmm, by now it's already December... I'm glad the survey is finally done!
(Here's the view after crossing over the hill, the "Problem Hill" that is causing us to talk about shared "plumas" for three of the nearby families. In this view, you can see a clearing in the middle ground, that's where the final house lies: down, around, and up the rise.)

There were several volunteers that stopped by to help the surveying go smoothly. Jess Mehl COS 2008 and Steve Russo G60 helped out early on and got things going (and debated with me the merits of an Abney level vs. Water level - no winner yet!). Later, Kaitlin Green joined me for a day walking with Miguel Mora and a small team, yes, still using the Water level.

Eventually I did use the Abney level to re-measure the primary main line. This was important to get an idea of how much error we are really dealing with in elevation. The large hill toward the end of one of the lines is just too high for comfort, so I was careful about the numbers.

Ultimately, I decided not to cross directly over the summit. We can reroute around the lower flank and reach the final cluster of houses but this means 3 families will need to walk 2 minutes down to a shared pluma. It will be interesting to see how they work this into their lifestyles - currently they hike 5 minutes to a "pozo" that dribbles water below a sharp, slippery drop below the homes. I hope they will see the new design as an improvement!

Thanks for providing the photographic evidence KK! These photos were taken in September '08 while the "aspirante" visited for a week. For sure, I wasn't the only one thrilled to have some one new to talk to :)

Project: Composting Latrine

This is it!

We are setting a deadline. I told my community members (those active in the current project) that the latrines must be finished by December.

The composting latrine project has been limping along for 7 months and before we lose all of our sand again or before I lose my mind, we will now focus on "goal-setting."

How close are we? Very close, so close that it is painful to see so much construction and yet no grand finale.

Here's a view of Latrine #1 - the first of the four:
It's true that Latrine #2 is waiting for penca for the walls (the family doesn't want to cut wood or the material before the right season), so in reality, both Latrine #1 and 2 have come a long way. But #3 and #4 need a lot of work. There is still mixing to do and pvc to connect for #3, but at least the stairs are already finished. I should include a photo of just how lovely they came together, an artistic mix of block and river rocks.

Latrine #4 has been a tragic epic poem. The original family was in and out of the community and rarely available to communicate. Eventually, the decision was made to seek out a new family with which to work. Denying a family a project is a delicate matter and after 2 more months, we smoothed out who will get the latrine. Currently we have moved all of the materials to the new site, now we are prepared to start construction and we still need to level out the ground where we will begin throwing the slab and blocking. We've got a lot to do!

To illustrate better, here's a view from Jess Mehl's project in the community north of me. Jess is in turquoise and I'm in kahki, we're working with 2 of my guys from Quebrada Mina.
This "pilot program" began with great enthusiasm and I think it can end that way. I'm still optimistic that things will go well once people see the construction-phase finished, only then we can begin the "interesting" part of this project: maintaining a composting latrine and seeing the product from "the box."

Update! Former Peace Corps Volunteer Jessica Mehl completed an in-depth study of the compost resulting from this style of latrine. Go here for the full report: Pathogen Destruction and Aerobic Decomposition in Composting Latrines: A Study from Rural Panama

September Success

Rice harvest in Quebrada Mina:
When I think of Miguel Mora, I think "aqueduct," but when his wife invited me to help with the rice harvest, I got a new view of the committee member.

The grandmother stayed behind, she was already busy "toasting" yesterday's rice and the younger children kept her company - I think the worker crews are also determined by how many tools there are. Harvesting rice is one of the few jobs that doesn't rely on a machete - we needed special "cutters." These are really just wooden dowels with a rubber band and a box-cutter blade, and they're perfectly designed for the work.

We hiked up into the campo to get to the field - halfway along the trail to get to the promising water tank area, ah-ha!

The rice was planted along the steep hillside that faced south, toward the Pacific coast, offering a lovely view as we began to work. Every few paces, I bumped into a stalk of corn, just about ready to be harvested as well. Higher upslope the corn crop was more densely planted, hmm... I think Miguel has been working with planting strategies.

We began the work fairly late, it was 10:00am when we took positions in the field. Even after helping Joselina and Ovidia, I still can't determine the work pattern. I've asked everybody, "should I work to the left, to the right, or straight uphill?" and the answer is always the same: "Wherever! Just collect what you see!" And then I try to respond with: "But aren't you continuing to the right, so I should continue up that way, you have a row and I have a row?"

These conversations always end with armwaving - waving "qualquier dirección." Okay, I'll just work where there's work to be done.

I decided to take what photos I could immediately, Miguel had already asked if I would "document" our work and I joked back that yes, I would collect evidence that the rice was harvested on this day.

So I've posted our cameos - the timing was well-chosen, just 2 hours after we began the work, the graying skies brought us a wall of rain.

I think at least a solid day (a dry day) would have been necessary to finish the work. But next to the budding corn at the top of the hill, blue-tinted rice was also in view and continuing over the shoulder of the "lomas" - Miguel's family has been busy this season!

Rice is hand-cut from the fields, grained, poured into a large cauldron "pila" and toasted, cooled, pounded in a large mortar with an oak (guacha pali) pestle, then sifted on a platter. Only after all of those steps do you get to boil water and cook up the "arroz nuevo" and I agree with my neighbors, it is so much tastier than the stuff sold in stores.

Is the concrete slab safe?
This was a question sticking in my mind after we poured the concrete. Now, after the seat was pulled from the mold and sealed to the floor, I feel better: I think we did a fine job.

This was also great timing. The church is planning a huge, fiesta-like event and will christen (so to speak) the new structure in a matter of weeks. The time is going fast and I expect the directive of the Adventist Church of Calabazal will attach planks and "penca" to finish the outhouse within the week.

Chakareros...

Gotcha!
Here are the weaverbirds that have been squawking away in the trees. Finally I had my camera ready when they were around.Yup, he's up there...Also, not sure if I've shared with you all the rambutans (here they're called mamo chino, but I learned the other word in Hawai`i). Have you tried these before?They taste like sweet-tarts, like a semi-sour lychee fruit - the season is already over, but you could see these muppet fruits weighing down trees in San Felix.


This is just a quick update, sorry it's not well-developed. I'm in Panama City for a medical checkup and realized I had some free time to share photos and news.

The composting latrine saga continues but extra materials just arrived to finish the last 2 structures. At this time, the 3rd latrine has been completed (well, the blocking and plancha-throwing) and we have started the carpentry-work for the wooden house that will enclose the sitting area of the latrine (suddenly my description sounds very odd... well obviously, this is official latrine jargon). Why did it take so long for the sand to arrive in town? Because of this:

Some great data came in from the National Aqueduct and Sewer Institute (IDAAN). They handed over the water analysis of my Quebrada Mina springs, so I have some detailed info to share with the water committee.

The critters are still scampering around my penca hut. This recent visitor got a dose of insecticide and immortality on this blog as I share with you the last moment of its life:


A Peace Corps Trainee visited me for a few days and we got to chat about good old Michigan Tech days and how the PCMI program is working out - for us both. The visit allowed us to pasear, survey the last branch of the aqueduct, and jump into the river.

The REALLY rainy season is about to hit and I'm now wondering if my geology fieldwork is going to flounder with the aguaceros. This is a bit of a worry since I'm aiming for some intensive hoofing around the DAD of Volcan Baru in October. I'll stay optimistic, but wary.

Of course the "Saca mi foto" insanity is continuing. I'm gritting my teeth and concentrating on maintaining a sense of humor. Check out the Res. Dogs charisma of my latest solicitors:
At the house of the Comite de Agua meetings, this family also requested portraits. As I waited for the kids to clean up and assemble, these 3 were unsure about stage left or right. The girl on the left ultimately decided our positions and cleared up the confusion of who was in charge - she's in-the-know and will always take the lead when even the PCV is confounded with who's relative is who's. This sharp kid is my other community guide.Also in the late-breaking news, all of the chicks from my hen have passed away. A mysterious tragedy that has left all of us saddened. (I can't hellp thinking that maybe I really should have cooked that hen for my birthday feast...).

Construction & Juntas

Construction is rampant!

1. Composting Latrine project is continuing (2 more to build)
2. A pit latrine suddenly appears

3. My house gets a make-over.

1. Last April my community received materials to begin construction of composting latrines at 4 different sites in town. The work has been continuing slowly ¨poco a poco,¨ so slowly that the weather has mocked our progress and decided to take away 2 meters of sand. So many rainstorms have been in and out of the community that a significant amount of sand has been reunited with the river.

This week we were lucky to have a few days of semi-sunshine and the road into town dried enough to allow a truck to drive in. Now we have our sand back and are ready to get going, again, with construction. This week is also important since an aspiring PCV will visit me and, guess what, that means said PCVT gets to learn some construction skills - haha!

2. This is a very good time for me to boast about my Community Counterpart. Román Chávez is a very active community member and has been watching step-by-step how Peace Corps Volunteer Beli Cudobu has been instigating projects. Well, maybe I can´t take so much credit, but he suddenly decided that the church had gone long enough without latrine services that, de repente, a pit appeared plus materials to cover it as a bone fide servicio.

He planned the ¨juntas,¨ got the donations, helped dig the pit, and said to me: hey volunteer, want to help build a latrine?

So I joined in, gave a little advice about rebar (hopefully not misplaced) and cement mixing, and helped build the slab for the church´s pit latrine. There was quite a bit of stress when we realized there suddenly wasn´t enough sand or rock to continue - who´s counting shovel-fuls of material?! and almost had to leave the slab like this until more material arrived:

What an engineering snafu:

Would there have been any hope of using this slab if this had sat for a week, waiting for more mix for the gaps?

I don´t know the answer, but I guess I made enough crinkled-nose expressions at the junta because suddenly sand appeared over the hillside and we were in business again. Okay, maybe I shouldn´t take much credit here either: there was a guy helping us that knew the school had excess materials and ample to share with the church, so...

...

so I should plan my retirement, these people don´t need a PCV to get them to act!

As for the plan for the plancha, the slab was also a bit kapakahi. For anyone interested, this is how the sketch-plan looks:

We had a significant donation of rebar for the project but unfortunately, the pit was dug so wide that most of the bars couldn´t cross the gap, for this reason, we decided to criss- cross and use a ton of wire to connect this web together.

So there it is! The slab was poured and we all celebrated with a mass of photo-ops:

3. My house has been drying up and getting bug-eaten ever since it was built (last December), so my neighbor, the super-human Román, organized a junta for bringing in new penca and bijau (sp?) leaves. Reconstruction began with the shower stall.

Apparently it was clear that the PCV is quite taller than anyone else in the area, so the shower should be adjusted to size - almost out of reach of the neighbors.

After this work, more reinforcements arrived plus materials. Roughly 8 women appeared dragging fresh penca. Each person found a space in the patio and began working on a stack of these palm fronds.

The fronds need to be separated into left and right-hand sides, this allows the builders to alternate the layers in a way that forms overlapping drapes. This kind of work is old hat for these ladies and they were zooming along so fast that I had a hard time focusing the camera. The penca they use comes from palms that grow all over the countryside. The majority of Ngäbe people in the Comarca live in houses of this material and so it is unsurprising that every year the competition for penca grows more fierce. These women had to walk roughly a mile away on muddy foot trails to find these fronds. Suddenly I was glad that I donated such a large quantity of red beans to the junta meal, they needed the energy!

Once the penca was ready, we were just about listo to start on my roof when, de repente hay lluvia: rain began to fall. It only lasted a few minutes but it was enough to cause Román some worry, so we adjusted the work plan. Today we will only fix the roof´s peak, the other gaps in the roof will need more time and more bijau (sp?) leaves.

Then suddenly Francisco was climbing up the pole ladder to begin mending the roof. The rain had stopped and Sixto had just arrived with a new bunch of leaves, so ya, the work restarted.

We decided to be a bit more modern with my roof and placed black trash bags down beneath the bijau (sp?) leaves. After a line of leaves was in place, Román began to hand up the split penca so it could anchor the round leaves while they dry in place. I later learned that the palms didn´t necessarily need to be split to work well but ya sirve.

What work remains? Tons! I´ll report on the status of my roof within the next 3 weeks; there should be great improvements (meaning less water falling on me) by then and also I should have news about the renewed construction of the compost latrines - news and photos.

Stay tuned!

Planting Rice

It began last May:
When rain began to threaten and winter seemed close, many of the people began to cut and clear their land ¨limpiarla.¨ When the brush and shrubs were cleared away, they waited for the fallen plants and the bare soil to dry. This year, they had to wait much longer than normal - many of my neighbors complained that this was a very wet summer in southern Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle. By late may/early June, plumes of gray could be seen from the hillsides, little by little, the people were able to burn the fields - a final step to prepare the soil.

Ovidia and her family have plans to plant both rice and corn this winter. What kind? I was told there is a ¨fast rice¨ that will only need 3-4 months of growth before it´s harvested.

I arrived in the morning after being invited to photograph their family. It was a bright hot day, but the sky was already filling with clouds.

¨Where will we work?¨

¨This hillside, this is where we will plant rice. On the other side, the children are already planting corn. Put 6-8 grains in each hole and cover well with soil. My brother is already placing the holes (roughly 1 foot apart).¨

So we worked for hours this way, that is, until I decided to photograph my neighboring planters...

Olvidia´s sister, Guillermina worked the right-hand side and asked several questions about what is grown in The States. I tried to explain how family-owned farms still exist but the largescale planting is done by companies. That was when I suddenly remembered that I hadn´t mentioned the Thanksgiving tale to them yet! So, with very rough story-telling skills, I tried to explain how badly the Pilgrims failed when trying to establish crops in New England´s rocky soil:

¨Y el suelo tiene bastante rocas y piedras, no fue posible sembrar muchas cosas. Fue un tiempo malo, un tiempo de hambre. Pero habian grupos de indígenas también ...¨

¨¿Indígenas... como nosotros? ¿Cómo le parece? ¿Cómo está su lenguage?¨

¨Pues, se llama Wampanoag y ellos fueron muy similar a ustedes.¨

¨¿Y su lenguage? ¿Cómo habla en su lenguage?¨

¨Bueno, no estoy muy familiar con el lenguage, pero algunas palabras son como: Annisquam, Wawinet, Quidnet, Nantucket, ... estas son palabras del otro lenguage.¨

¨¿Y que significa tienen las palabras?¨

¨Pues, en realidad, no sé. Algunos discriben lugares.¨

¨Ah, sí.¨

¨Sí, eso es.¨

Her interest in ¨otras indígenas¨ isn´t the first time I´ve encountered questions about different cultures within The States. My other neighbors also ask: do they speak English, do they have land, do they have our skin color (one guy asks if they are ¨red like us¨), do they have hair like us?

And so I continue the story and finish with a punchline:

¨Y la idea nueva fue una estrategía. Pusieron una sardina conjuntos las semillas de maiz.¨
(And the new idea was a strategy. They put sardines in the ground with every corn seed.¨)

I love Thanksgiving and it was wonderful to explain the roots of such a large celebration, of why we celebrate and how: platefuls of food!

I know that the ¨indigenous¨ words I used were just town names in my home state. I know that they likely have a lost meaning, maybe a discription of the region, maybe the name of the particular people that used to live there. But just to sound out the different words, just to give an example of what the language might have been like... I thought that was useful for my Ngäbe friends. The complicated and not-so-idyllic relationship between my ancestors ¨antepasados¨and the original people of New England would be hard to explain. I went as far as saying that we have made ¨convenios¨ with the indigenous people and at least today, there is peace between us.

At just about noon, rain began to fall and suddenly the view to Cerro Iglesias was just a blank sheet, an aguacero was on its way - time for lunch!