Water improvements in Taccacca

Last week on my diploma course, my friend Yesela was talking about how much she had to do over the next week - so I offered to help.  I didn't really know whether she accepted out of politeness or whether she really wanted my help, but I went.

It was my first solo-travelling trip (you'd think I ought to be able to manage now after a year) so I found the little bus station that goes to the Circa area and bought my ticket, shared the seat with a couple of chatty old ladies and bounced along the track to Taccacca, where I had never been before.
Taccacca has been targeted by a new government programme as it's in the lowest percentile for extreme poverty.  So they are receiving a project to repair and replace elements of their water system.  Yesela's job is to deliver the community teaching programme that goes along with the project.

 

Here's the washing and bathroom facilities where we were staying, to give you an idea. 

We had a meeting with the village leaders (the community president, the water committee, the health workers and teachers) to agree the programme for the different teaching sessions.  First we worked out the rough plan in our room / office.  Sessions include writing an annual plan for water system maintenance and purchase of chlorine, to determine how much each family should pay, then a session on health and hygiene, another on basic plumbing... and much more.

Then we agreed the plan with the leaders - it's hard to fit everything in because people spend basically all the daylight hours working on their farmland - and planting season is coming up so it's only going to get busier.  We can have evenings and occasional weekend days, but we also need to give people a chance to rest!

The next day we walked up to the reservoir with the health worker and 2 men from the water committee, to disinfect the reservoir.  This is meant to be done at least every 6 months.

First you empty it (this involve me looking at the different pipes and valves and working out which was which - I've drawn them a diagram now showing what's what, and which ones should be open/closed, so they'll know for the future) then you clean it with water and scrubbing brushes, and rinse it out. 

Then it's time to fill it up, give it a heavy dose of chlorine, and leave it to soak.  While it filled up I measured the water level over time - a good way to figure out how much water is arriving. 

The Taccacca reservoir has the equipment to chlorinate the water consistently - which is Peru's big push at the moment to improve water quality. So after we'd rinsed the tank out again we got the dosing system working.  One problem is that the reservoir is always full to overflowing, which is a waste of lots of the chlorine (and an unnecessary expense).  So I'll be talking to them about different ways they can solve this issue. 

 

Mixing chlorine solution which drips steadily from the plastic tank into the reservoir

Along with Yesela's teaching programme, the village will have some work done on their existing water system.  This won't be anything new though, it'll just be getting old and broken parts working again.  So if they want to make improvements they'll need to come up with the money themselves, or have someone (!) write a proposal for funding.

 

We were training the water committee to measure the residual chlorine levels at various points in the system.  Today it looked good!

And some nice views on the way back down to the village:

We managed to finish everything needed for Yesela's deadline next week, so it was great to have been useful.  We talked a lot about her plans for the health and hygiene teaching as well, and I passed on lots of ideas and materials from my work in Ecuador that she is looking forward to using.

I'll be going back!

Getting to know Arequipa

Each year I have a review with either HR, the Abancay team leader, or the Peru Director.  I decided to take the opportunity to go to Lima and meet with the Director - but at the same time get to know the city, visit the other SIM missionaries and see what they do, and visit my friend Ruth who I know from England.  I shelled out for the comfortable 180 degrees reclining overnight bus (£20) for the 10 hour journey - and it was totally worth it.

Beautiful snow-covered Chachani, on the outskirts of Arequipa

I thought this was an ingenious method of creating a sprinkler!

I visited:

-          An evening seminary talking about “evangelism and culture”

-          A student Christian group

-          An English class

-          The Shalom school for children with disabilities (not a SIM project, but where Ruth works)

It was lovely to be at the Arequipa team meeting as well - and as a great treat I got to play the piano while we sang amazing hymns!

I spent Saturday with Ruth - we went rafting.  It was amazing - a fun mix of adrenalin and beautiful views!  And despite the photo, not too precarious.  I fell out right at the end in totally flat water - having been easily set up by our guide!

Post-rafting smiles!

I spent 2 days in the Colca canyon.  The idea was to go through my diaries from the past year, evaluating and praying over what has been significant - ready for my annual review.  I did a little bit of walking as well and managed to get to the condor viewpoint - but mostly it was a very restful time and a very productive one, and lovely to spend time away from the city being able to rest in God's amazing creation.  I’ll be trying to plan in something like that more often.

The road along the side of the canyon has to overcome a few challenges!

Apparently condors are best spotted before 8am: I was lucky.

A day out - Concacha and Saywite

A group of students from Lima came to AIDIA to visit the translation programme, and invited me to come with them on a day out.

We got a car to Concacha, where one of my colleagues lives, and visited him and his wife.  I helped prepare lunch (which was guinea pig, but sadly I was just helping with the salad) and managed a bit of conversation in Quechua - one of the students was learning it too so we both limped along together.

Then we walked down across a river and up the other side of the valley, to see the Inca ruins - as you do.

There were lots of of old stones - building foundations, bits of irrigation systems, rocks for sacrifices to the sun...

We arrived at the main ruins, which had HUGE stone steps, about as high as my shoulders.  There were normal-sized steps to one side, but I decided that would be no fun!

Finally we reached the roadside and the stone of Saywite - a famous monolith with carvings all over it.  Historians aren't sure what is represented although there are various theories - one says it's a map for a buried city which the locals can read but won't give up the secret.

Motorbikes and the effect of prayer

Yesterday a team from AIDIA went to Cachora to do a dental clinic at the children's home, and a talk about prevention of sexual abuse.  I went along with my usual aim of getting to know more villages and seeing how AIDIA works.  But I also, through my university Diploma contacts, arranged to spend most of the day collecting data to finish off the water system surveys that had been done in that area.  Slight hitch - it turned out that, despite arrangements, there was going to be no-one from the local office to take me around the systems, and no transport.

On Friday night, I was feeling very discouraged about this, very tired, and not looking forward to getting up at 4.30am for an unproductive day of hanging around.  I considered sending out a request for prayer, but didn't really want to as I was fairly sure nothing would happen, and I would be even more discouraged - now about prayer as well as ineffectiveness.  But, deciding this was no attitude for a missionary who trusts in God - I asked for prayer!

Arriving in Cachora, we discovered that Friday had been their patron saint celebrations, and so the village was sleeping and not much was to be hoped for.  The mayor was also off traveling, and the government office closed. After going down to help Noemí with her talk, I called my contact to check if he had somehow managed to set anything up since yesterday, but he hadn't.  He suggested my only option would be to find a motorbike to hire and go round independently.

Noemi and the group at the children's home

So I went back to the town centre with Noemí, expecting to get a bus back to Abancay with her when we found nothing.  I was feeling a bit fatalistic and fed up of not being able to get things done.
We had Noemi's cousin Joel with us, who had been helping out at the children's home, and he said his brother had a bike, but unfortunately it was in for repair.  We went down to talk to the repair man, who ended up hiring us his own bike for the very reasonable rate of £1 an hour.  He wasn't available to drive it though - but Joel agreed to give up his afternoon and help.

Negotiations

I had a list of 9 villages, for which we had to find the town centre and the reservoir.  Noemí helped me sort out a route (and eliminate the one that was 2 hours away!), and then we were off. Here's an example:

Pantipata Alta is a scattered group of houses, so defining the "centre" proved challenging, but we also had fun tracking down the reservoir. We asked a lady for directions - which were given partly in Quechua - “up there where the lorry is, by the tin roof. You go off to the right, it’s faaaar, round behind that hill - ask someone else when you get there”.

The next guy we asked turned out to be drunk and unable to make sense… but also reluctant to let us go away. Happily his friends came down from where they were working on the hillside and helped out.

The road wound its way up and round the hillside in a series of hairpin bends, past little houses with dogs that chased after the bike and snapped at our ankles (we slowed down if we realised in time, so the loud noise of the bike didn't attract them, but otherwise we had to keep our feet out of the way and fake occasional kicks without falling off) then got very steep and rutted. I had to keep getting off for steep bits, muddy bits, narrow planks across irrigation channels, and when we met a lorry.

We eventually located the reservoir (helpfully they are usually painted bright blue) a long way from the road - we had to climb down a steep dusty wooded slope, over a crumbling mud wall, across a river, avoiding the bull… but got there! This was definitely the hardest one to find.

Other parts of the day were like being on holiday - a beautiful road round the side of the hill, looking across over Cachora at the snow-covered mountains on the other side.

Noemí's family live in one of the villages we had to go to, so they gave us lunch.  Another little bonus miracle of the day was that I managed to eat all of my lunch - something that I always worry about because the platefuls are HUGE and not finishing is a mortal insult.  I really wanted to honour Noemí's Mum by finishing - and managed it.  It was also delicious.

And here's my chauffeur - without him I would have got nowhere, or been eaten by dogs, or fallen down the hill, or been threatened by an angry farmer... It was great to have somebody local who knows the unspoken rules about when you can and can't walk across somebody else's fields.

So God has provided, against all my expectations - I really need to start expecting more!  Part of the result was to make me more determined to find a solution - so much of the time there is so much inertia to work against, so many possibilities to try that even getting started is exhausting - but this time I had asked people at home to pray so I had to keep the effort up on my side too!  And God provided Noemí, Joel, and a motorbike to help sort out my problems.  So a very successful and encouraging day.