Useful work!

Peru is doing a Rural Sanitation Survey (which includes water systems), hopefully in every community of every district of every province of every... you get the idea.  Some are prioritised because of extreme poverty in those areas, so people are being specifically employed to do those.  But the others all need doing too - and the sooner they get done, the more likely those areas are to get a higher budget next year from an incentives scheme.

So partly through my diploma course, and partly through the government workshops I've been doing, I've got involved.  The local government people responsible often don't have the time or the equipment or the understanding of the survey... so I'm helping fill in the gaps.

This water source was collected in a covered tank - which was destroyed by a landslide in the rainy season

It's stunning countryside - here we are are walking back down from the water source

Asking the village water board about how they manage the system

Each family has one of these taps outside their house

President of the water board

On the way to another water source...

The whole village was working to repair the pipework the day we visited, and we were part of an impromptu meeting.  I talked about how water is necessary for life, health/cleanness, and growth - and how this can teach us about God, who also is the source of life, forgiveness, and growth.  I talked about the opportunities I hope this survey will provide in terms of projects to help with their water system.  I even managed to throw in a little bit of Quechua!

I did the surveys in Curahuasi and stayed with my friend Ruth - sadly she's just left so I think I might be the only Brit in Apurímac.

It feels amazing to be doing work that is genuinely needed.  So much of my time is spent learning and developing skills to build a good project in the future - but it's lovely to have a positive useful contribution to something that needs doing now!

I have a degree!

After a very successful trip to Lima, I now have a Masters Degree!  Or at least, one that is officially valid in Peru.  My original degree certificate has grown to 6 sheets of paper and various ribbons and seals to show it's all present and correct.  I've been working on this ever since I first got here, so it's great to have it.  This now means I can put letters in front of my name - but more importantly it means that I can become a member of the Peruvian College of Engineers and officially sign-off on projects - which in turn means that AIDIA has the option of not only doing self-funded projects but also working with in-country funding making my Water projects ministry more sustainable long-term.  At least this is the plan...
It's not the end of the paperwork as the Abancay branch of the College doesn't quite know what to do with me because no foreigners have tried to register here before - so we will be working that out.  There is an official system - so somebody somewhere will know!

I also have my Peruvian driving licence, having provided a translation of my UK licence, passed the theory test, proved I can see and done a psychological assessment ("to what extent do you agree with the following statement: sometimes I see things that aren't there", etc.).  Again, I'm not planning on using this straight away, as I don't have a car at the moment, but am very glad to have it completed for the future when I might be transporting lots of construction materials to the villages.

Spring protections and project research in Curahuasi

I’ve just come back from a week in nearby Curahuasi, where I’ve really enjoyed seeing Bruce and Cherith Rydbeck again. They have worked in community development for about 35 years, and Bruce is a Civil Engineer who does water projects. I know them from my work in Ecuador, where they now work with a charity called Kawsaypak Yaku (Lifegiving Water). They brought a team from Calvin College in the USA to work with the local government on improvements to the water system in Curahuasi.

 
So it was great to meet Bruce and Cherith again, benefit from their wide experience, meet the team they brought, and join in some of the work they were doing.  For the first few days I stayed at the Diospi Suyana (we trust in God) missionary hospital in Curahuasi, and it was lovely to learn a bit more about their work.

Curahuasi has to ration its water, with different areas of the town getting water from as little as an hour a day. We were investigating ways to improve this quantity issue, as well as looking at possibilities for better chlorine dosing systems for water quality. A lot of what we did was survey work, as the group will continue to research and develop options when they’re back in the USA. I really enjoyed the practical outside work, and the detective work involved in figuring out ways to get the data we needed from minimal equipment and no drawings!  It turned out that I could do a lot to help - particularly as one of the professors was ill on the first day.

Students checking water depth. I wouldn't let them go inside to get a sample...

Meeting at the local government office to explain our work

I don't remember many sites with such a view in the UK!

Crossing over a river ravine - they've had to divert the river to a
more central channel to stop the supports being undercut.

I stayed on a couple of extra days to help finish up the protection of one of their springs, which they had been working on for the last couple of weeks. Again, it was great to be back in that practical environment, remembering old methods and learning new ones.

Driving up towards the spring (the first time, before we went
back for the forgotten bags of cement.

Lunch by the roadside - the spring is about 5 minutes' plunge
down the hill (up was rather more challenging).

Last week they covered over the spring area to protect it, and
modified the existing collector tank.  Today we were
connecting up the new pipework for the increased flows.

 

The plastic pipe being softened in order to bend it slightly:

 

I’ll be talking with AIDIA, with the Curahuasi local government, and with Bruce about how I, or the rest of the AIDIA team, might be able to carry on involvement with this project in the future.

And for a little treat - here's what we were watching while the pipework got loaded onto the truck:

Back to school

I’ve been studying a Diploma in “Integrated Management of Basic Environmental Sanitation” at one of the Abancay Universities.

 

It looks at the laws and procedures around water systems, the roles and technologies, training village water boards in the skills they need, and how to apply for government funding for projects. It’s every 2nd weekend for 6 months - so far it’s been hard work but very interesting and I am very glad I decided to take the course. There are some extra training events too for local water system managers, and I am taking the opportunity to learn everything I can. It’s a bit of a new way of doing university for me - last week we had 6 hours of class time without a break!

Not just listening... we have to present back to the rest.
So far my Spanish is functional but not professional!

It's also been great to meet the other students - both for developing new friendships and meeting others who work in the same areas as AIDIA.

 

Radicales Libres!

The church I have been going to has a youth group called "Radicales Libres" or "Free Radicals".  I think it's a pretty good name - because of Jesus we are free, we are called to live radically, and we - like free radicals - will be constantly affecting others who become free radicals too...

We went to a youth conference in Cusco (I should explain here that "youth" in Peru and generally Latin America seems to mean a slightly different age range to in the UK.  Roughly:

• 5-12: kids
• 13-17: adolescents (doesn't seem to have the awkward and embarrassing connotations that it has in English)
• 18-for as long as you're single: youth

The "youth" category seems quite flexible too - there were also young kids, and married couples on the weekend.  Anyway...

It was really good to be reminded in one of the workshops that we should go beyond our limitations.  We talked about grace - which we commonly think of as God forgiving us our sins.  Ok, but it was pointed out that grace is so much more than this.  It is God making up the difference, in everything every day, between what we can do and what he wants us to do.  God doesn't want us to say "yes, I understand your requirements, and I'll do it!" - he wants us to say "I know I can't do it - please help me".  So in a job where I constantly don't know what to do, or feel I can't do it - this is good news! 

It was great also to explore Cusco with my friends - and to see that Peruvians as well as foreigners want to hang out in the main plaza and eat ice-cream.  Oh, and also go to the mall, go to the cinema and eat pizza.  These are pretty rare treats.

We also tracked down a little go-karting track and spent a fun couple of hours alternately racing round it and getting stuck.  I am trying to track down some photos to show you.

Dental work in Ancobamba

Erin had a week-long visit from a USA dental team and I accompanied them on one of their visits - to Ancobamba.  It’s quite a big village but takes a while to get to - it’s very high up (and therefore cold) and the track winds its way slowly up the steep mountainside, taking in very spectacular views and very alarming drops!  

I was along as a translator for one of the dentists.  Mostly Spanish was sufficient, but our last patient couldn’t understand me in Spanish, so I had to use my carefully prepared Quechua phrases.  It was a great encouragement when these were successful - I could ask her where it hurt, explain what the dentist was going to do, ask her to open her mouth wide, and explain how to take the painkillers we gave her afterwards. But I wasn’t only a translator. We were short a dental assistant, so I ended up learning how to keep the patient’s mouth dry during a filling, and generally be an extra pair of hands.  Being a missionary is very varied!

The water engineer side of me couldn't resist taking a photo of the water tower... and I was impressed to see a poster up about the village water management committee! There was running water inside the health post where we were working, although the houses in the village didn't have quite such an efficient system.

We were fed huuuuuge portions of delicious food

Washing our hands before lunch

We stayed the night, and this was by far the most luxurious accommodation I've had so far on one of these visits.  A whole bed to myself, electric light without hanging wires, and no animals.  And with the early start, the cold day, and the hard work, I slept very well.

Sañayca saga...

Sañayca is a village that received a very successful water project (i.e. one that involved not just construction, but change of attitudes and therefore ongoing improvement) through CARE and their sanitation programme a few years ago.  It was mentioned to me in my visit to the Cusco CARE office, and then again when I made contact with the local government office here.  So I have the phone number of the mayor and have been planning to arrange a visit.

The problem is that I put off phone calls for quite a long time because 1) my mobile is not great and even in English I find it hard to hear what people are saying, 2) conversations don't happen in English, they happen in Spanish, and it's harder to hear when you can't see people's faces and 3) signal in the villages is worse and so it's even harder to hear.

Last week: I finally bite the bullet and make this phone call that I have been putting off for nearly a month.

It is just as bad as I expect.

I ring the mayor of Sañayca and can only hear about half of what he says, because he is in the middle of nowhere... and speaking Spanish of course.  Then he says (I think) that they are having a big meeting tomorrow and I can come then – but then I am panicked because I don’t know how to get there yet and whether I even can for any useful time tomorrow because the buses are complicated... then he said talk to the local government office because they know.

Except that the local government guy (Omar) is probably getting fed up with me because at the moment I am emailing or ringing or turning up at his office every week with some enquiry.  But anyway, I call him and eventually work out that instead of going to Sañayca tomorrow I can turn up at some training event they are all coming to Abancay for – tomorrow.  So I know where it is and what time to go there.  Except that I have no idea what this training thing is actually about.

The next day, I go down to the town hall in the morning and they tell me no, no-one from Sañayca is coming.  I ring Omar (again) to check, and yes I am in the right place, I just didn't know the name of the training meeting.  Equipped with this open sesame, I go back to the town hall and this time get in.  But almost no-one has arrived for the training yet because I am only 10 minutes late.  I leave my name and number with the lady on the door who says she will call me when they arrive.

This works.  About lunchtime I get a text message, and about 4pm I go down again as I figure they will be finishing soon.  At the end of the session I go and interrupt Omar (who has just finished leading the training day) to get him to introduce me to the right people.  But, finally, there I am, speaking to the people I hoped to meet, and explaining about AIDIA and that I would like to visit Sañayca and their water project.

The water system manager says "Great".

Then he says "We should set up a visit.  You should ring me next week.  Here's my number."

...

I go home, envisioning an unending process of incomprehensible phone calls.

This time I decide that I have had enough, and I enlist Noemí, who works at AIDIA, to help me.  She phones up and after several back-and-forths they ring me back when she is not there, but encouraged by her help I manage to arrange a visit for Friday afternoon.

The journey involves a 2-hour bus followed by a half-hour taxi ride (returning is slightly complicated by the fact that our taxi doesn't wait for us).  And when we get there we discover that the CARE project wasn't actually in the village of Sañayca - it was in a smaller village in the district of Sañayca.  ("Here is the mayor's phone number - you can call him to arrange a visit...").  BUT this is all unimportant as we meet with the district mayor and the water system manager and hear a lot from them about the project.  They attribute its success to the fact that a trainer lived in the village for about 3 months before any construction work started, teaching about hygiene and management and making sure people were on-board, and stayed through to completion.  I am amazingly encouraged to hear that the system is being used properly, maintained and improved (and I believe it, because they show me the one here as well and explain their maintenance and management systems).

Elements of the water project - these models were given to the village on completion of the training programme

A break-pressure tank: in one piece, clean, and locked - a great improvement on many

Looking up to the water tank - very impressed that it's in a locked compound

The water system manager explains the cleaning schedule - each street takes its turn each month to clean and disinfect the spring and the tank.

They are also interested to hear about the work AIDIA does, and talk with Noemí about the possibility of some teaching sessions.  I am glad that they might get something out of the visit as well as answering so many of my queries.


This whole process has been a major triumph - in doing things that are difficult, in being willing to look stupid, and in asking for help - as well of course as actually finding out about what made the Sañayca project so successful.

Proof that I made it to Sañayca eventually!