Day 2

Day 2, Wednesday October 21st.
I figured out that the family I stayed with had given up their only double bed for me, and that they were sleeping on their couches. I felt a little guilty about that, especially since I think that they were counting on Susan coming as well. They charged me $10 for dinner, breakfast and staying there, rather than the $20 they had said originally, even though I offered the whole $20.
At 9 I met with Oscar Garcia Reyes, the local head of Amextra and Stephanie Sieveke, a young US volunteer at their office. We rode a few miles to Lomas de San Isidro, a community on the outskirts of Chalco. It's a squatter community that grew up in an abandoned gravel pit. The government won't give them title to the land because it is unstable and has landslides when it rains. It looks a lot like the area around the dump at Tultitlan, with rough unpaved roads, no electricity or water and no sanitation.
Amextra has a office there too, with classrooms. I think they focus more on adult education than on children, because I only saw or heard about literacy classes and health and nutrition classes. There was a class of women there when we arrived.
One really neat thing I saw was a very complete, very expensive water filtration system that they had there at the office. It is only a few months old,. The water from the local water trucks is contaminated and is the only water available to the community, so Amextra buys the water, stores it in a huge tank and then filters it and sells it very cheaply to the people. People bring water jugs to the filter system and Amextra washes the jugs and fills them. Apparently some other agency is going to donate a bunch of water jugs for the people who can't afford to purchase them.
My only concern about their very cool system is that it is sophisticated and complicated and needs good maintenance. It is similar to systems we had in the laboratory in the hospital, with a series of filters and UV treatment of the water. I guess they bought it from some company in Mexico, who installed it and taught them how to use it. I remember that we often had trouble with a similar system in the hospital. Oscar said that they are sending out weekly water samples for testing to make sure the system is functioning correctly.
I said that the water testing procedures I am teaching would work well for them to help maintain their system, and they were very interested. I took a water sample of the water from their “before” tank for testing.
We walked up into the community to see some of their other projects. A number of the houses have started collecting rain water for use in gardening and clothes washing. I suggested that they could use it for bathing also, but they said the water is irritating to the skin because of all the polutants and smog in the air. Then we talked a little about simple sand filtration systems they could use to clean the water better, even if they didn't drink it. I have some literature that would help, but I need it for my class, so I said I would email them materials later. I think I see my friend from Tultitlan Gaudencio's hand in this as he is a big advocate of sand filters. He is apparently very successful in working with the various communities that Amextra serves because he can speak honestly about how things should be done.
We also looked at some poultry and rabbit growing programs that Amextra has in the community. They are similar to ones I saw last year in the mountains of Oaxaca. In Oaxaca the communities worked together to breed and grow the animals for sale, so that when a family had extra roosters and hens they passed them on to another family so that they could start their own flock. Here I think the animals are donated. They are beginning to use the fertilizer from the animals to grow gardens. Perhaps now they could use some help with the proper methods of cultivation and which crops are good to grow and sell. Since they are close to town they have an advantage over other crop and animal growers who live further away.