12th Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Vivienda de Arriba Water Project

Record of Event
12th Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Vivienda de Arriba Water Project

Where: Vivienda de Arriba (40 mins from SMA)
When: Wed Oct 5th 1pm- 2.50pm (we were late because Jesus’s wife has dengue fever)
Who: Jesus & Saul, (Cedesa) Laura, (Rotary), 30 adults (incl 9 men) 6 kids.

Purpose: The water project funded by Rotary has concluded, with the successful completion of 17 cisterns (1 school & 16 individual family).

This meeting is continuing relations & development in the community & neighbouring communities. There were representatives from 2 communities attending today.

San Lorenzo (3rd visit at VdA, 1 at Cinco Senores)
• San Lorenzo is close to Juan Gonzalez (makes more sense to combine JG & SL, than with Vivienda 2nd phase).
• Approx. 4 families
• Humberto Alfonzo & Odelia – the young people, that approached us after the 1st assembly & said they were very interested in doing social development work & learning how to be a promoter, were here again.

San Isidro Capadero
Jesus Rico & 4 other people attended from San Isidro Capadero. There had been confusion about potential visits to their community & attendance at assemblies, so he had not attended previous assembly but wanted to reiterate they are still very interested.

La Tinaja was being visited by Chela & Saul today.

Jesus asked who would like to co-ordinate the meeting today, Anamaria agreed to take the roll, one woman attempted to be the attending representative for more than 1 family, Anamaria questioned her & pointed out that participation is essential, & you can not send 1 person to represent many families.

San Lorenzo people are included on the list for Vivienda de Arriba, hence their attendance was noted.

Jesus gave a brief discussion about meetings & agenda’s & called for the points for today’s meeting.

Agenda
1. San Isidro Capadero
2. Sanitarios
3. Ecocina stoves
4. Event re water, at school
5. back yard gardens
6. resources/planning for phase II

Item 1 San Isidro Capadero
Jesus (from Cedesa) described the planned inauguration/regional meeting on the 22nd Oct at Capaderillo. This is to celebrate the completion of the Capaderillo 40 cistern project but also to serve as a regional meeting for those interested in participating in a project in their community.

The communities will submit their requests for assistance & we will attempt to organise potential funding on a larger scale, combining multiple communities in one request. The potential funding sources at this stage are Sapasma, Fondo Verde, Desarollo Social & Rotary.

We are inviting representatives from each of these organisations including Lucy Nunez (mayor) & Irma Rosado, Helio Bastien (Ecology) .

At this meeting we’ll be working together, presenting the info re who wants to participate in the cisterns project & how we can proceed together.

Jesus reminded everyone attending to bring food & drink to share, since there will likely be soooo many communities attending.

Forms to complete (1 for community, & 1 for each family) were given to

Jesus Rico – on behalf of San Isidro Capadero
Anamaria – on behalf of Phase II of VdA
Audelia(?) – on behalf of San Lorenzo

The San Isidro Commission then left .

Jesus then called for proposals for the commission to represent Vivienda de Arriba at the inauguration/regional meeting on the 22nd Oct.

Anamaria was proposed, & voted on.
Jesus said are you going to send her on her own? & one old guy replied, yes, send her on her own, & everyone cracked up laughing, then chose some more people.
Audelia, Angela, Nicolas, Marie.

Another older man said it’s important to get together with the other communities in our area, & make a plan to begin the next stage.

It was suggested that people not attending should contribute towards the costs of those who are.
They decided $200 pesos would be needed.
There are approx 40 on the list so suggested that each person contribute 5 pesos, then it was pointed out that 5 of thos people were from San Lorenzo & not fair to ask them, after much discussion & many jokes cracked, it was decided that 10 pesos was a fair amount .

One man immediately came forward & gave his contribution to Anamaria as a show of good faith, she began checking names off the list as more people came forward to pay.

The word for contribution of food Traje, is apparently the same word for swimming costume, so when Jesus reminded everyone of the “traje” there was lots of laughter as people imagined everyone going in their bikinis…

Item 2 – Consejo de La Vivienda de Estado Guanajuato
Jesus added another item to the agenda, he had met with this organisation who are essentially a govt loan/credit organization. (loans are very rare in Mexico). Jesus explained they offer options to take out loans to improve your house, eg for roofs, floors, & were talking about the possibility of funding loans for cisterns.

He explained that for example you could borrow $3000 pesos, & pay it off over a period of 5 years at 50pesos per week.

This could be an option of the “migrantes” people up in the states, who could take out a loan to pay for their cisterns, since we have made it a rule that people must be present to participate in the cistern projects.

Jesus is going to invite this organization to the 22nd Oct meeting, to inform people better of the options.
Questions were asked
What papers are needed? Id papers, proof of ownership (the usual)
What can we get? Depends what you need, & can afford to pay back.
Do we have to work in a group? Not necessarily, but it maybe makes more sense to.
Is it a gift or a loan? A loan, it has to be paid back “ohhhhh!!!!”
How much can we get? Up to 20 mil. Pesos, they look at how much you can afford to pay back & make calculations etc, money is only for materials not for labour.

Item 3 – new person
Another item jumped onto the agenda – a new person attended today & asked to join the list of the phase II people. Jesus pointed out this was a community decision.

Annamaria pointed out invitation had been extended but she wasn’t interested previously, & now she is interested? Ana mentioned again, you need to be present or send a representative, 1 per family, 1 person can not attend for many.


People were attending for the cisterns & since they have finished have stopped coming, Ana pointed out that there are many things that can be talked about & resolved, but regular meetings must continue.

There was discussion re Phase II v Phase III (people in the USA), & it was agreed the new person could be added to the list.

Ma. De Dolores, Hernandez Ramirez…
Ana reiterated she does not want to have to go to each house to remind people of meeting days, she asked each person to take responsibility for attending.

Chela arrived & shook hands with everyone, she was dropping off Saul & had to race home, her mother is very sick (dying).

Chela mentioned again the extreme need we have for a vehicle to work in this region. A San Miguel based old pick up truck suitable for visiting the communities, as the roads are sooo bad they are ruining the vehicles of Jesus, Laura, Holly, whenever we have to visit.

Item 4 – Sanitarios Secos (dry toilets)
Jesus asked everyone what a sanitario was – some responded a bathroom, & he said “for showering?”, & they said no for pee & poo… with a great outburst of laughter.

He wanted to determine which word everyone was comfortable with using, pee pee, poo poo, kaka??
They decided pee pee…
He went on to explain bodily function, ie that our body needs to eliminate toxins, form of elimination is pee, poo, sweat, mucous, vomit.
The elimated material is germ ridden , for example snot, some people blow it into paper, others just blow it out, we don’t have a toilet for snot! (again more laughter).

The history of toilets as explained by Jesus:
We humans have designed various systems to deal with pee & poo. The people were asked to describe some, flush, septic, dry.

Toilets are essential in the cities, but in the country many people just go in the wild, then the poo dries & blows around in the air, this is not such a problem where there is wide open spaces, but when it’s more enclosed, it can be toxic.

One young man yelled out “it’s good fertilizer for nopales (cactus)”.
Jesus responded, all animals poo, this lands on the earth & dries & fertilizes the earth, when it’s birds or horses no probs, but with too much human faeces it contaminates the earth/rivers/ water supplies.

In England they invented flush toilets, just press a button & away goes the problem, but does it? This still contaminates water, the sea etc. The water/flush toilet is the most widely used in the world.

Septic tanks are another option, but they have probs too, they transmit the germs under the earth. One guy responded, not if they are properly sealed… But… they fill up fast & they need water to operate, what happens if 1. you run out of water 2. it fills up?

Other people began working on the issue & came up with a design that doesn’t need water & also creates excellent fertilizer like the man said urine & poo make great fertilizer… but not raw poo. Poo that has dried & converted into dry fertilizer to enrich the earth.

There are various models of dry toilets – Jesus described the Cedesa model. Toilet separates pee from poo, poo is captured in one of 2 chambers. When the 1st chamber is full it is closed, & left to dry, then the toilet is moved to the other chamber.

Bacteria & amoebas work on the poo & in approx 6mths the closed chamber, is dry & ready to be used as fertilizer.

The implications are
You need to move the “fertilizer” each 6 mths.

You need to go to the toilet in one place (ie not out in the wild)
If you operate it correctly it doesn’t smell bad
The pee goes directly to the garden or to a container to be diluted for liquid fertilizer 10:1 water to pee.
The cost is more or less the cost of a septic tank, but you get to use the fertilizer, & don’t need water with which to flush.

If you are interested, now that we’ve talked about pee & poo, we can talk practically about how to construct a sanitario seco – rustic version.

He briefly described another version that is being used, ie it has a big plastic bucket as a collector instead of chambers. The bucket does not allow the poo to dry. Most people stop using these toilets & just use the toilet as a shed & the bucket for other uses. (for example in Cinco Senores)

During the next assembly he will demonstrate the design, & then the following assembly he will bring cement & cal to build the rustic version, if they will bring the rocks…

Item 5 Event – Water Info Day
Ana reminded everyone of the previous discussion on this topic, & that the parents had been absent at a meeting at school that day. It was suggested they could put together a commission of interested people to organize this & look at options like FAI – asking with a solicitud.

Everyone looked a bit blank, so Saul asked if they were interested in having a water info Day?
Ana then jumped in to explain what it was, basically an event to inform the kids about all aspects of water, the hydraulic cycle, conservation, recycling, water capture etc, it would be demonstrated with games, like in the Los Torres event, & small prizes, Jesus suggested people raise their hands if they were interested in helping…

Commission : Serafin, Angela, Teresa, Anamaria.
When? – let’s talk more on the 22/10 about when – possible dates 15 &30/11 were suggested to clear with the teacher.

Item 6 Back yard Gardens (traspatios)
On 13/10/10 Benigno (technician from Cedesa) is going to Cruz del Palmar to discuss/train about traspatios, Saul suggested those interested could attend there (it’s about 40 mins walk)…

Jesus asked who knows about traspatios? Who has them? What are they?
He used the example of the garden of the house next door, from over the wall we could see various fruit trees, Granada, orange, peach, nopal…
Back yard gardens are not limited to the back yard… they can be wherever there is available space for a garden.

You can grow fruit trees, veges, animals etc.
There are technical ideas to learn about to maximize your space, minimize use of water, enrich your soil – so you can grow nutritious food for your family, & if you have extra trade it…
This is a basic summary, if you are interested you can attend in CdP at 11am on 13.10.10.

Saul reminded everyone that last mth there was a list of 13 interested people, & it’s not worth Benigno’s time to come all the way from Dolores Hidalgo to teach just a few… Laura mentioned that Izykiel working with feed the hungry, has 87 family gardens in place already. Ana mentioned that Los Torres have begun working on theirs,

Item 7 Ecocina stoves
Jesus described the ecocina stove v the current form of cooking they use, basically wood fire with a comal (hot plate) balanced on top. The photos were handed around, so everyone could see what we were talking about. The benefits were described ie no smoke, much less wood, portable. The concept was briefly described ie that Saul would create a regional factory to begin constructing these stoves, & sell to the communities at a subsidized price – in order to be able to distribute to more people we will have to charge something (ie not a gift).

It was also explained this will be the first time in Mexico – they have been in Guatemala for 15yrs.
Everyone was interested to know more & see a working model.

Item 8 General information
Ana asked the people of Phase II to turn up on Saturday @ 5pm to get copies of the individual family forms to complete & take to the regional meeting on the 22/10/

Next meeting 22/10/10 at 11am at Capaderillo

Next Vivienda de Arriba assembly 3rd Nov at 11am.


We were invited for a taco, but had to decline as Jesus’ wife has Dengue fever, & we have another assembly at Tierra Blanca to attend, before he can get home to be with her.