Water Projects Update

From the "be careful what you wish for" files....last Fall, after we moved to the mountains of Guatemala, it took quite a while to get things moving regarding water projects.  Now, there's more going on than we can do, which is a good thing, but has contributed to some tiredness.  What many people don't realize is that when they ask "how long does it take to build a water system for a village?" is that the actual construction is the easiest (and most fun) part of the whole thing.  But it's only the short middle phase in between the planning and engineering on one end and training and operations on the other.  There are lots of opportunities to "go build stuff" or "write a check to build a ____" in the world, but the acts of getting villagers' buy-in on the system layout and then their commitment to maintain it once it's built can take a long time, and it's not the sort of thing that can be done remotely - it involves meetings and relationships and trust.  And sometimes frustration.

But all the sweat and work and often-tiresome meetings pays off a thousand times over when you see a system built and see it working and see villagers take pride in something that they:

1. Had direct input on (not all organizations do that)
2. Worked hard for (not all communities do that), and
3. See as "theirs".

In January, a team of professionals from Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon engineers in Nashville came down to build a water system for the village of Sesalche II, one of the two largest villages in the Valley, with close to 1,000 people.  Their previous water sources were muddy pools in the middle of town and were very polluted with runoff from the market and with the daily chores of washing clothes and bodies in the water supply.  We identified a very high spring that had more than ample flow in it and designed a system to feed essentially the entire village.  It's as good a system as you'll find anywhere.

There are several aspects of this project that are exceptionally rewarding to me.  Having people tell you that they believe this will save their lives is a good feeling.  Working alongside former co-workers and friends is also a very good feeling, as is hearing them say how much they want to be involved in future projects.  Here are a couple of pictures of the project:

This is a group of men moving a 350-pound concrete pila up to a church in the middle of town, they have since constructed a house around the pila and use it many times a day.  Sometimes, during construction, we had as many as 50 men at a time working with us.

I just thought this little guy was cute.  When I walked up, he and another kid were playing in the pila near their home.  Technically they were wasting water, but my kids play in the sprinkler sometimes too...

We actually do some engineering as well.  This is Kris checking the level of another tank on a different hillside to make sure the two are level.  I mean, what sort of missionaries would we be if we didn't make sure that the hydraulic grade line between two reservoirs maintained a steady hydrostatic pressure, anyway?

This was a trenching crew I'd put up against any mechanized crew in the US.  The first four guys were digging a trench, the next two were placing the pipe into the trench and the last three were covering the pipe.  They went about 2,000 feet in one afternoon.

My favorite memory of the "work" in Sesalche II.  We routed a waterline from a tank (the one Kris is looking at in the photo above) down to the school, and in the process came across this tiny house in the woods with an elderly woman in it.  Because the most direct line from the tank to the school was literally underneath her porch, I made up some garbage story about how, in exchange for running the line by her house, we needed to add a water spigot at her house (the other sources in Sesalche II were "community" pilas).  This wasn't entirely true, but it just sort of seemed like the right thing to do, so for the first time in 80 years this woman can get water at her house, rather than walking 1/2 hour in mud down to a polluted spring.

We have other projects going on right now - a couple of them very large.  I'll post some good pictures of a water tank we are building in Sesalche I (not adjacent to Sesalche II - go figure) and of some upcoming projects in Semesche (the other large community in the Valley) and Sequixpur, where there is enough water in one spring to supply virtually everyone in the Valley with water.  Exciting stuff.