La Tribuna Day 6

Friday, August 11, 2017
Joyabaj, Quiché Department, Guatemala
Today was the day. Finally!! Everything finally made sense and came together and we finally feel confident in our scope. 
We had to split into two hotels last night, so the people from the other hotel came over for breakfast. They were out of panqueques though :( after breakfast, we tried to go back to the other hotel to get our bags, but a parade even bigger than yesterday was going on, and there's only one road going from our hotel to the other. So we turned around and aborted mission. I got kinda stressed about the whole thing, since we had a meeting at 10, had to go to the other side of town through all the festival to check out by 1, then haul all our stuff over and then do all of the survey of the community before a 4pm meeting. UGH. Going back and forth to the hotel really kills our time, especially today since there was a time limit on it. But that's okayyyy....
We went to our 10am meeting and literally had to become part of the parade because there's only ever one way to get anywhere. Apparently there was a miscommunication and it was supposed to be on Monday, but we happened to run into Petronilla right in front of the building at 10am. Phew. We called this meeting last minute after our meeting with the mayor yesterday to better define our scope and to propose adding in families who want to be part of the system but weren't able to attend the initial meeting. Things went over really well, they were still adamant about not adding people because of capacity, but we need to work with the engineer to figure out where he got his numbers from. Everyone's waiting on things from the engineer... 
it finally came together at this meeting. No, this project isn't perfect. It's not the most sustainable or efficient solution. Kassie and I had many talks on the ethics of the project as a whole, and talks on how long we make the people hold out for water until the perfect opportunity comes along. We concluded that this project is going to happen to matter what. The community is so organized- they know they'll have to pay monthly for water, they already have put down a principle investment, and they're already working with an engineer. We weren't sure where our place was since they had basically already done everything. Kassie and I concluded though, that this project will happen with or without us. We've been invited to participate, and honestly a ton of the hard work has already been done. We can really focus now on making it a quality system from water treatment to the management program. This will be a great learning process for everyone. EWB would learn more about this messed-up water system situation in the country (since it sounds like this type of system is new to them), and the Guatemalans would be able to (hopefully) look to this project as an example of a solid water system. Since much of the grunt work is done, we can spend time and effort getting involved with Joyabaj and it's water system, since it's causing all the problems. We met with Alejandro, the maintenance man for Joyabaj's system, and he had a ton of great insight for us. He is the only maintenance guy- there are no maps, everything is in his head, and he has no apprentice. There are about 5,000 homes currently on Joyabaj's system, unmetered, and over 1,000 families haven't paid their taxes in 5 years. The cost per year is 30Q, or $4.50. Insane. He said that he has problems with people leaving on their tap, causing people down the line to not have any water. This explains why some of the muni taps in La Tribuna didn't have a faucet on it- it was just an open pipe. They are at the end of the line, and they only get water a few times a month. Why have a faucet when you can leave it open and know when exactly water is available? Alejandro also said he wishes that the water was a bit cleaner, apparently they have both a sand filter and a chlorination plan, which should be sufficient for a river source, but our tests showed differently. We found no chlorination and there were plenty of coliforms present. Apparently EWB has gotten on Joyabaj before for not putting sand back in their filters and forgetting to chlorinate. If we could get them to adopt a better maintenance plan (maybe hire at least one other person, and draw out some plans/maps) and install meters (tough with politics), that would be amazing. Alejandro was super in support of it, and he's been trying to get this stuff done for a while, but he's just one guy and the mayor doesn't want to charge more for water. We have no formal agreement by any means to make this happen, but we're looking to get in contact with other like-minded groups in the city to find some sort of solution. It's definitely not something that will be done in a year, but I think it's really important to be a part of it and to work to express where we think the best solution to the region's water problem is. 
I could ramble on and on, but overall we feel good for once about this project. We know the difficult person will be the engineer, we know we'll get to learn about design by reviewing his work and creating a water treatment system, and we know there's a bigger picture in mind. The people were working with are great, and although this project is not what we thought it was, I think it's unique and can really be beneficial to both parties in the long run. 
Jumping around- before meeting with Alejandro we took elevations of the community and actually got the base work done. Since the engineer already has data on this, we can use our data to check his and come up with our own solutions. It rained for a good two-thirds of our surveying, but we were ready for it and just chugged through. I love being in the rain (the waterproof boots, pants, and jacket don't hurt either), but that's just me. 
We met with Alejandro in the new EWB Guatemala office- it's so cute- Mincho and José sit at little desks and do work and that's it. It's amazing. Dream team. And then we met with Alejandro- you heard all about that- then we went back to the hotel cuz people were beat. I could've kept going but maybe I was having too much fun. I think I was just happy to feel okay about everything. 
We tried to order dinner before everyone came (we didn't want them eating our french fries), but we were too late. That's okay though, they had already eaten so we all just hung out and drank Modelos and ate many plates of french fries. Pretty relaxing way to end the day. 
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2025-02-17

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