32nd Event of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Los Torres

Record of Event pg 1 of 3
32nd Event of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Los Torres

Where: El Cortijo & Los Torres (school, upper community & Chucha´s house)
When: 28.10.09 10am – 4.15,
Who: Chela, (Cedesa), Bill & Montse Webb (Tallahassee Rotary) Laura (San Miguel Midday, + 51 adults including 7 men, + many children.
Purpose: Pre meeting planning in the car on the way. This visit was dual purpose, 1. to show Bill & Montse the results of the project to date, & introduce them to the people, & methods, 2. to plan next steps with the assembly. The plan included Visit to school to take photos, & meet with teachers & kids, then walking tour of close cisterns for Bill & Montse & visit to the kinder, again to meet with kids & teacher.

11am, we met with some of the community leaders, the teachers & children at the school. We took photos needed to complete the San Miguel Community Fund 2nd Project reporting (SMCF funded the cisterns at the school, which allowed Rotary funding to include more families).

We were met with much enthusiasm. Chela talked to the gathering of teachers & children about the great volunteer effort to build the cisterns, generally about water & conservation, & the water in the cisterns (2 of the 3 are full, the 3rd is waiting for roofing replacement). After a photo session we thanked them all for their involvement & moved on.

We visited another family cistern on the way. This cistern was less than 1/3rd full. The small roof was sited as the cause, I suspect it is lack of conservation, as the roof size should have been more than adequate to fill it by this point. The community also mentioned the municipality truck deliveries were very rare during the rainy season, so I suspect they have been using the water for general use (not just drinking & cleaning as it is designed). We will talk more on conservation at the assembly.

We visited the Kinder, & met with a happy welcome, at the first cistern built. It was completed in February, months before the rainy season, so they opted to have it filled with water from the town deliveries. This is not ideal as the town water was not emptied out before capturing rain water. Also the teacher has been using this water to wash the floors & for general cleaning. We explained there is not sufficient water for this, & other water should be used for this.

We explained this water is not ideal for drinking without treatment, (it should be mentioned the people in Los Torres have been drinking municipality truck delivered water for years, so actually this is not too drastic, considering it will have been diluted with pure rain water, so be a better quality than they have been used to). We will be doing another session on Solar disinfection, for the communities & children/teachers in the kinder & school.

We all squished in the van & drove down to the lower part of the community.
We were met by a big crowd, running a little behind schedule they were already waiting for us, but despite this, Chucha & Jose Miguel (the delegado & his wife) insisted on feeding us, we were treated to a delicious campo meal, of chicheron (pork skin) & nopal (cactus) & beans & rice with warm home made tortillas. We scoffed it down, knowing that the crowd was waiting outside & then joined the gathered assembly.

Assembly began at 1.30.
Chela mentioned they have tested Chucha´s well & it measured 5.8mg/l (this is very high, highest recommended safe level is 1.5mg/l), this testing took place while I was in NZ so I was previously unaware of this.

1. Chela introduced the team & gave a general talk on water & the aquifer. & how we must all work together to improve the situation.
2. A co-ordinator was nominated – Cecilia, & Alejandro was nominated to take records.
3. The roll was called, including the 2 visiting parties representing, Cruz del Palmar & Vivienda de Arriba.
4. Items for the agenda were called for :
The road.
Traspatios (backyard gardens)
Equipo de Acesoria (technical work team)
Conservation of water
Planning the 3rd phase of the project
New communities ie new projects in neighbouring communities
pg 2 of 3
cont.d agenda items.

New solicitudes (ie new projects for the Los Torres community)

These agenda items were prioritised & following is the order in which they were discussed.

Third phase planning
The meeting asked when funding will be available, I responded by end of November with luck, & explained the process to receive funding has many steps.

Veronica raised the point, some people still have not paid their contribution re the construction of the cisterns at the school, (this was an agreement made by the parents of the school kids, who ever could not attend to assist in the construction of the 3 cisterns, agreed to pay a fee) after much back & forth, it was decided to give the list to the teacher to chase. She is difficult to avoid…

A new person came forward to ask to be added to the list of recipients for phase III. Maria de Jesus Ramirez works in Montecillo de Nieto during the week & comes home at the weekend, she is a resident of Los Torres, & is prepared to pay her contribution towards the construction of the school cisterns.

Chela said there are strong volunteers & weaker ones, in this case the strong ones have managed to prove the concept for the others, & it should be decided whether others will be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labours… & they need to take real need into consideration.

There were several others that asked to be included, Caritina Ramirez, Christina Maya & Juana Soria, with these additional 4, that brings us to 24 for phase III – including 3 tinacos for the elderly solo people.

The delegada also asked if we could provide materials for a cistern to be built for the padre of the church they go to in Cruz del Palmar. They are happy to build it for him, if we could provide the materials. I said I would have to check our budget, as we only have funding budgeted for 20 cisterns & are hoping to use the credit balance from phase II to pay for the difference.

The 3 groups for the 24 people were formed. (3 groups of 7, with no mention of the tinaco receivers, this will need to be addressed when the funds arrive.

Conservation of water
Elena & Laura discussed the need to be very sparing with water use. We demonstrated the cistern when full contains 12,000 ltrs, & at 3 ltrs per day per person, for 275 dry days of the year, this will be sufficient for a family of 14. The formula changes depending on how many litres the cistern currently has, & how many people there are in the family, but basically there is not enough to use for washing dishes or floors & it MUST only be used for drinking & cooking. They need to ration themselves.

Also, I mentioned I am worried the taps are too easy for the children to turn on, play with & lose all the water! They need to be very aware of this. Ideally we could have some sort of child proof lock on the taps, yet to determine how.

The community mentioned how grateful they are to have these cisterns, there have been very few deliveries of water by the municipality during the rainy season & they would have had no water, & had to beg or borrow it from the people with (contaminated) wells.

Neighbouring Community Projects
Cruz del Palmar
2 women from the neighbouring Cruz del Palmar,
Yolande Ramirez Juarez 415 155 9482 & Teresa Gonzalez Maya 415 113 9274
attended our previous assembly, asking how they could have a water project in their community, as they have a scarcity, & contaminated water. Los Torres people told them to go door to door & gather names, & inform them they would have to be prepared to form committees & work groups & do the construction themselves, then to return to the next LT assembly with a list of names.

They returned with a list of 32 families.

pg 3 of 3

Vivienda de Arriba
Another neighbouring community also arrived at the Los Torres Assembly, this was a group of 5 women representing the community of Vivienda de Arriba.
Anamaria Torres Ramirez (415 112 5094) told us they have a well in nearby Tierra Blanca Y Espejo, & supposedly have piped water, but during the dry season they receive no water. The well runs dry, in the dry season, & they are on the higher side & there is not enough water for them.

She was very well organised & already had collated a list of families wishing to be involved, 38 families in total.

We thanked them for being such excellent advocates for their communities, we explained the funding process & that we need time to investigate possibilities for financial assistance. We asked them to visit the next assembly to hear what we have discovered by then.

In summary
This is an extremely heartening result. For an outside community to visit their neighbours with a request for help shows great motivation, & an obvious desire to solve their own issues. This is exactly what we hoped would happen with this project, ie that others would seek to replicate this simple & effective model.

Chela (from Cedesa) is very interested to begin organisation with these communities, now all we need to do is find some more funding.

We have since visited with the Ecology department (& plan to visit with the department of social development) to encourage them to adopt our model & assist to provide safe drinking water in this municipality. This is an ambitious project, as they already have their chosen model (ie the San Miguel Viejo model, that we have evolved our project from). It will now be up to us to demonstrate the advantages of this model (that “teaches them how to fish”)´v´ their model (that provides a “fish Meal”).

Regardless of the direction the municipality decide to take, we will continue with our plan (with your continued support) to provide safe drinking water to as many communities as we are able, & we have a headstart on the needs analysis stage, (obviously still be thoroughly investigated).

At the end of the assembly Bill gave a heart warming speech about how with their hard work they have solved their problem, he thanked them for their courage & leadership, & said we are honoured to be their partners.


The meeting concluded at 4.15pm & we headed home with our tired but sated Tallahassee buddies.

Thank you so much to Montse for her excellent simultaneous translation!

Next meeting December 2nd at 11am – Chucha´s house