Day 5

Day 4, Friday night
On Friday night my problem was not that I had so much material to cover, but that so little of it was in Spanish. Even organizations that work in Latin America often have their websites and materials only in English. Sources of information on sand filtration systems in Mexico have really interesting products and methods but in English only, similarly solar UV radiation sterilization demonstrations; ceramic filters; and more fuel efficient “rocket stoves”. Before I left Oregon I paid to have some of Dr Metcalfs materials translated and copied in Spanish. I thought those were slides and photos and technical information directly related to the subject, including a photo of Dr Metcalf. These other sources are very interesting and helpful, but in English and less useful. Some in the audience speak or read English, but almost none do in the ultimate target audience, the local community.
The best I could come up with was writing out a brief Spanish summary of the different websites with their web addresses. Most in the community don't have water or sanitation, let alone computer access!, so that was mostly for the benefit of the NGO's. I just hope some of it filters down or up depending on your perspective. Luckily everyone stays up late there in Oaxaca, so I was able to find a late night copy center and make a bunch of copies of the summary.
I tried to sort through my stuff to find more visual things and leave out stuff that is mostly written. I thought I could make a display of photos of various water purification techniques, that way we could look at the pictures and talk about them. I also had the “wapi” wax water temperature indicators to distribute – the local people call them “little thermometers”. I had purchased a bunch and Dr. Metcalf gave me some more, so it was the one thing I had about enough of for all the participants. It would give everyone something to hold and play with, Susan called them “manipulatives” in her first grade classes.
My general plan for Saturday was to have Maria Elena talk for a half hour or so, then get into looking at the results of everyones water testing. Supposedly they had been incubating their samples over night and we could see which ones were positive. Then, after a break we could get into the other purification techniques for a while. Maria Elena was going to set up her cooking first thing, and so then at the end we could see how they turned out and take some taste tests. I thought that should be enough for one workshop, so I got to bed about 3 and got up at 6:30.

Saturday Morning

They don't leave the hot water on at night, so you get a really bracing good morning shower. It's warm in Oaxaca in the evenings so I don't know how the water gets so cold! I thought I should try and look professional and organized even though I didn't feel that way, and I wore my red Medical Teams International t-shirt because it looks good in photos. There is a nice little breakfast place down the street from the hotel where you can get eggs and beans and tortillas, so I got in a quick meal before Bonifacio picked us up at 8. Maria Elena was all set with her cooking supplies and lecture charts and was making me feel sort of disorganized and desperate.
Bonifacio said he had a deal for me, he would pay for the fruit for the break if I would pay for the shade tarp and all the rental chairs he rented. Since the fruit cost about 5 dollars and the tarp and chairs about $50, it would seem like he was getting the slightly better deal. I'm sure I couldn't have put on the conference without him organizing behind the scenes. Everything was very simple and local but totally appropriate. I think he is really effective at his job.
When we got out to the community center there were some people there early waiting for us to open, as distinct from yesterday when I didn't know if anyone was going to show up. I suppose most of the people were really there to have their water sample testing interpreted and to take home their solar stoves, but I'll take any audience I can get. I got them to help set up the chairs and sweep around the patio a little. Maria Elena started preparing her cooking dishes while I set out the solar stoves we had made the day before. I took a picture of all the stoves set up in the sun, I think we set a world record for the number of solar stoves constructed at one time. I think there were probably 20 or so by the time we were done, all taken home to be used by individual families. Maria Elena chose 4 stoves and put 4 different pots of food in them at about 10 oclock. There was a pot of rice, one of black beans that had been soaked overnight, one of a dozen eggs to be hard cooked and one of fresh broccoli to be steamed. I had suggested arroz con pollo, but she is sort of a vegetarian and wanted to just stick to healthy natural dishes.
It was a slightly smaller crowd than the day before, but there were a few new people from the who community who had heard from their neighbors. A few of the NGO's had said that they couldn't come on Saturday due to commitments, but many others stuck it out for the second day. It was a very pleasant day and a nice setting. The center itself is just three small dark rooms, but they have a nice patio, and with the sunshade it is a very adequate place, and well used and supported by the local community.
I started off with a few short announcements then introduced Maria Elena. She is a small, shy woman, but when she stood up to talk she totally took over the program. Her speaking was simple and self confident and she seemed totally relaxed and in control – way different from me! She seems to naturally start a dialogue with her audience and direct the discussion in the way she wants to go. Her audience, local community people as well as professional organization leaders all lean forward to listen to her. I didn't realize it but she had her complete outline on flip charts and very naturally worked her way through them.
Maria Elena's program took about an hour and a half. It was a combination of healthy eating and lifestyles, diet and exercise and recipe tips. The group was completely fascinated, and it became an interactive discussion and sharing session. One thing I found interesting was that the questions and responses were similar from the local community members and the foreign NGO's.
It was noon by then so we took a break for lunch and at the same time I started helping the group examine their tests to see if they were positive. I forgot to remind them on Friday to bring their fluorescent lamps so that we could examine the specimens correctly, so we only had one or two lamps and we crowded into one of the darkened room. Some people only had one or two samples, but one women, a community leader and activist named Ana from a neighboring community had six different samples, all most all of them positive. She had collected them from the families in her neighborhood.
I needed more help and so I asked Cecelia Barry to make a chart of the tests and which were positive, in all, about half. Some were tests of bottled water so discounting them there was a very high number of positives from the surrounding communities. They don't have wells, so this is contaminated water that they had to buy.
There were also a fair number of poorly set up or invalid samples which were my fault.. I had everyone practice pipetting first, and I did demonstrations of everything, but it does take a little practice and I should have had more trained helpers to help the participants do it correctly. Maybe next time I should have an advance session for some people who could then help everyone else. I feel bad about the wasted samples. Also, some that appear negative may have not been set up or incubated correctly, and the testers might be getting a false negative result and drinking contaminated water. I suggested that they should test the negative samples a couple of times to make sure the results are correct.
By this time everyone was up and moving around so I pretty much gave up on any more lectures, especially following Maria Elena. I set up a display table with what materials I had and talked about them with the people as they stood around. I thought it was sort of lame, but people were interested and my sheet with the info of websites was well received. Actually some of the participants had tried one or more of the different methods, some more than me. I think its partly because they all do their own thing and don't interact enough with other organizations that they seemed a little scattered. I said I was going to set up a network of the participants where we would share ideas and results. I asked that they send me their water testing results and we will keep track of them and try and learn what works and what doesn't.
We also got started talking about how we would get more testing supplies when these ran out. I gave out enough free supplies for 250 tests and most people seemed ready to go right out and use them up. Maybe the enthusiasm will wear down, and maybe some will have problems with the $65 the kits normally cost, but I hope there will be continued demand of some kind.
Another issue is the “Wapi” temperature indicators. Every family needs their own to test their own water. Now they cost several dollars each and are hand made. I asked someone here in Portland who is an advisor to a student group of Engineers without Borders if his college students could design a better, cheaper one that could be mass produced.
One idea is to utilize the distribution methods of the various NGO's. Now they ship medicines and humanitarian relief supplies, and it wouldn't be a stretch to shop water testing materials. This could potentially be another benefit of more networking among the agencies.
At that point Maria Elena stole the show again by taking her pots from the stoves and opening them up. The rice was fluffy and delicious, the eggs were perfectly cooked and the broccoli was beautiful. Everyone was standing around the pots sampling and suggesting other recipe ideas. I even ate some broccoli which is unusual for me. I thought the beans were fine but most people thought they needed longer, perhaps another hour or so, so what do I know!
The program broke up mostly at that point and people started collecting their solar cookers. They seemed proud of their stoves and eager to try them which was fun. I gave them websites and ideas for other fancier stoves they could make as well.
Bonifacio then said he had an announcement to make. Apparently the participants took up a collection for me! They that have so little and work so hard for it were donating money to me. I choked up and almost lost it right there, I was overwhelmed. I think I'll use the money to get more Wapi “little thermometers”, but the real solution for them will be when the Wapi's are cheap enough that everyone can buy their own. I also got a very sincere and touching letter from Ana the community leader. She seems extremely dedicated and hard working and I think will be a great asset to her community and hopefully we could work with her in the future.
We started cleaning up, because the community center had several classes scheduled for later in the day. Bonifacio seems to really be good at getting a lot of use out of the community center, and perhaps it might be time to think about enlarging it so that it could be even more useful. My papers were scattered like a whirlwind had been through, but that was good because a lot of people had looked at them. I gained and lost supplies, as people left things behind. I now have enough testing materials to do a few demonstrations as needed, but will soon have to get more from Dr. Metcalf.
I was really looking forward to having Sunday off to rest, when Cecelia Barry announced that she was anxious to get started working on her school construction project and so had decided to begin tomorrow, Sunday at 8:00! We have a mountain of rock and gravel to carry up a hill to the school site and need to get started. Maybe I'll get some rest when I get back to Portland!

This is about it for my blog about the water testing workshop. I'll write a summary and follow up and try to post some pictures. I'll also try to keep it going for general discussions about water testing and clean water programs world wide and invite others to contribute as well.
Thanks for reading,
Tom Carter