Thursday 1/18 Recap

Hola,

Yesterday was another very eventful day. Manika and Nicole did an educational presentation for younger students (around age 7 and 8 I think). It went extremely well. The kids loved it and they also drew us some adorable pictures.

In the meantime Herbert and Divya worked on translating the letter with recommendations for the pipeline and the captions for the appended pictures, respectively. I went along with the ever-tech-savvy Julian to print both more surveys and the letter and pictures.

At 2 p.m., we presented to the Municipality. People who have traveled previously said that the new Muni was lees interested than they had been in the past. But it was still important that we presented and gave them the letter and photos. Many members of the Water Committee also attended the meeting, and we talked with them afterwards about the possibility of using some of the grant money to contribute to maintenance of the pump stations after startup.

Herbert and I returned to the internet cafe because I had left our stapler there earlier. Herbert introduced the two guys working behind the desk to ¨Gangnam Style.¨ So if all the kids in NSCI are doing the dance next time we come, he´s responsible.

At 6 p.m., we had our town hall presentation. We were disappointed in the turnout; we counted 53 people in attendance (not including ourselves). We think this might´ve been because of the weather - it was probably not even 40, damp and with strong wind. So maybe a lot of people didn´t want to leave their house and walk to the meeting.

The presentation itself went really well though. Again, it seemed like most people preferred boiling but were very interested in learning more about SSF. After the presentation we went back to the SSF slides and explained in more detail. It seemed like a minority of the people in attendance would be interested in owning a filter. After the meeting, Manika and Divya had the great idea to give Esther one of our blue ¨Water is Life¨ t-shirts for all her help with the survey.

Finally, we walked back to Angel´s and ate dinner. We had a long discussion about this trip and the future of the project. A lot is up in the air and needs to be decided, so Julian and Divya would like your input. We will probably have a meeting near the beginning of the semester to discuss the future of the project. Regarding the technical committee, Sandy thinks we could work on SSF design with materials that would likely be most available and affordable in rural Guatemala. Personally I thought that sounded like a lot of fun. I´m sure she and Dave and the project leads will want to talk with Joe to decide how to move forward technically. Leave a comment if you have any ideas!

Also last night, we gave Angel´s family gifts to show our appreciation for giving us a place to stay, cooking meals for us, and letting us tuk (kind of their version of showering). Everyone here has been so warm and gracious and welcoming. I´m really sad to be leaving this afternoon. The time went by so quickly!

Today we will be doing surveys (currently have 115 completed, aiming for 200 if possible), finishing up the last of the water quality testing, and packing. See you all back at school soon!!

Eleana