Shortly after the completion of the first Project in Los Torres, we—my wife Sue and I—visited the Project, this was back on 13th November 2009.
What would motivate the two of us, who had no previous contact with the Project, to go to Los Torres?
We belong to the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor, one of whose members, Tom Conlin, spent several months in San Miguel de Allende.
While there he attended meetings of the Rotary Club, and became interested in the Water Project. When he returned, he persuaded our Club to join in support with other Rotary Clubs.
We came to San Miguel for a National Geographic Photo Workshop, & contacted Laura Stewart, whom we knew had worked hard to accomplish the goals of the Water Project.
She kindly consented to show us how the Project had worked in Los Torres. On our part, we were eager to see the results of the Project, and were delighted that Laura would take her valuable time to take us.
Laura drove us out for an hour over roads that barely existed; they were as bad as those we’ve seen anywhere (including Belize, Kenya, etc.).
When we arrived, we saw a substantial community, (in two parts), and (o our great pleasure), many of the cisterns designed to harvest the rain water.
We were especially pleased to see the cisterns at the kindergarten &and elementary schools. That told us that harvesting rain water had become a community project. The community had evidently organized itself
around the project, and the idea of working together as a community was in itself new to them.
We also visited a family who had installed their own cistern.
Old water collection method, wait for the water truck
to come & deliver water, then collect it by wheel barrow
& cart it home.
The new method to collect water - family's own cistern.
Despite the language barrier, we could sense the love the family had for one another. I tried to depict this in my photography, and in the image Sisters I think I succeeded.
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After this inspiring visit, Laura drove us back to
San Miguel over the same roads as before.
Again I worried that the suspension would break,
and that getting back to San Miguel would be long postponed.
But that didn’t happen, and we returned knowing that our Club
had invested its dollars well in helping others to enhance their own lives
in a significant and permanent way
Sisters...
.
