Yesterday we celebrated the completion of
10 cisterns in Vivienda de Abajo. Nine cisterns were in family homes and one
was at the secondary school. This is the last cistern that we plan to build in
a public space until we have a program in place to ensure maintenance and
proper use. The development process for building a “public” cistern that must
be maintained by a group or committee is very different than the process of
building privately owned cisterns.
Attending were 15 families from Vivienda
that are still participating in COCIRA. These persons are involved in other
CEDESA promoted projects such as backyard gardening, health clinics & home
health training, and bee keeping. Overall there were about 40 persons in
attendance and a wonderful lunch (especially wonderful green mole) was served.
New members to COCIRA seeking Rotary resources were in attendance from Nombre
de Dios, San Lorenzo, Boca de Canada and Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca.
Chela, Mayra, Saul and Mago were
representing CEDESA. Lee Carter was there from Rotary San Miguel Midday. As
this was Saul’s last official day as a CEDESA promotor, he cut the inaugural
ribbon.
It is interesting to see how some projects
go better than others, but I still am not sure how to predict a project’s
outcome. This project is one of the best we have had during this grant. All of
the cisterns are well constructed, connected and in good service. On the other
hand, we still need to go back and do remedial work on about one-half of the
cisterns in Banda. I will be talking with CEDESA about sending a technical
representative to Banda in the next several weeks to finish up that project so
that we finish there with 100% of the collection systems functional and
collecting the summer rains. We have determined that having a good and
responsible albanil (experienced construction worker) as a part of the work
group is very important.
Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel
Midday
