I´m in the thicket of both the Water System and Latrine projects, with excellent macheteros. I´m actually busy on a daily basis, enjoying it all. The water system now has all of the pipes laid from the source to the community, about five kilometers in total, roughly 800 6-meter pipes. We´re now finishing the numerous river-crossings, cementing the pipes, and testing as we go. I hike to the community just about every other morning, they feed me, we organize ourselves, and then hike up into the hills carrying what we need. Yesterday I received a place of rice with thick reptile arm and leg pieces covered in a cocoanut and tomatoe sauce - iguana: the best meal I´ve had in Panama - surprisingly tender skin and meat, and the hardboiled iguana eggs were excellent as well. Every day except Sunday roughly 10 to 25 people are working, coordinated by atleast two members of the Water Committee, and there is more than enough motivation for them to work smoothly without me. There were a few days of frustrating struggles with air pockets that build up and become stuck at peaks in gravity flow systems, blocking the water if enough pressure is formed. A device exists that releases the air and not the water, but the cost is betweem 20 and 80 dollars and getting to the closest place that sells them would require a two-day trip. We eventually cured the problem areas with screw cap slightly untightened at the peaks, letting the air escape and leaking only nominal water - once the system is running normally, no more air should enter the system so we can completely tighten the screw caps. That required a bit of critical thinking, which has been severely lacking from my time here - it was very welcome. The most exciting aspect of the air problem is that a few of the community members were able to understand the root cause and how the solution works. Purchasing such a large value of materials here enabled us to receive significant discounts, so at this time it looks like the funds will be able to reach further than anticipated. Also, the politician who committed to supply the source structure materials came through in a timely manner, which is very rare.
The latrine materials arrived this week via an old US military cargo truck owned by the hardware store, which is just about the only type of vehicle that could haul everything up to the community considering the condition of the path. There´s now about a week for everyone to carry their own supplies (40 liters of sand, 40 liters of gravel, a 42.5kg sack of cement, two 1¨x3¨x12´ pieces of lumber, and two 30-foot bars of reinforcement steel) from the community center to their homes, which is about 2km down a precarious path in some cases. There were originally 15 participants in the project, but one has failed twice to meet deadlines so we´ve dropped him out of fear that the materials would end up being wasted on a permanently-incomplete latrine - the community is not used to real deadlines, so this is a good lesson, just like I learned in school when trying to hand in an assignment after the due date; the unused materials will either be used for a latrine for another family in need or for a garbage disposal location that the Health Committee has been wanting for the community. We have three days set next week to complete the latrines - Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Three Coordinators will make their concrete floor slabs with me on Thursday so that they are all clear on the process, and then Friday and Saturday two groups of three will work each day, each led by one of the Coordinators. Three the first day, six the next day, then five the last day (6 minus the ex-participant). Then a week for them to build the walls out of palm leaves, wood, mud & straw (waddle-and-daub), or zinc sheet metal before they receive the zinc roof sheets. This project also has surplus funds, so we may be able to complete another round of a few more latrines in the community. The governor of the province seems to be realistically set to provide the fiberglass seats as committed, which will be another exciting instance of the government coming through for the rural poor.
To all of the donors to these projects: I have not yet received the list of donors, so I don´t know who to thank. I will, in theory, eventually receive said list, and will then be able to shower you in thanks from the communities and me.
