tech – Journeys

Protecting Water Sources

Where does your water come from? A lake? A river? An aquifer? Do you know? In our busy lives, it is someone else’s job to think about that, to make sure we have clean water that is safe to drink. (Though in recent history the catastrophe in Flint, MI has made a few people think twice about the theme – even to the point of paranoia for some.)

I work with institutions whose responsibility is making sure people have clean water to drink, but they often only focus on building and repairing water systems. Unfortunately, a lot of times they forget that protecting the source of water, is just as important. So, as water systems get built by an outside entity, capturing water from rivers, streams, or springs, the people in the community start developing the land nearby and above these sources, within the watershed, cutting down trees, building houses (and therefore bathrooms), cultivating crops, using agrochemicals, and raising cattle or pigs that contaminate the water, not realizing the impact it will have on the water source.

We have the good fortune to have an NGO in our community (IBC) that has expertise in watershed protection (among other cool topic areas like native communities, stream health and others), and is a member of our group GTIFAS. Thanks to IBC, a very exciting part of our project is to work closely with five communities to identify risks to their water source and recommend ways they can eliminate risks and protect their watershed in the future – while respecting land rights and the need to have income generation from their land.

This involves strategies like reforestation with native plants, creating zones of protection, and creating zones for low-impact activities like raising bees or crops that use minimal agrochemicals.

Another important approach is a type of economic valuation of ecosystem services where, in this case, they the recommendation is to raise the water fee on the water bill to have some extra funds to help pay land owners for the environmental services the forests on their land provide in keeping the water clean – giving incentives to either not cut down forest, or to reforest areas near water sources.

While there are a lot of general recommendations we can give to each community, we wanted to make sure that we knew the situation on the ground and could give very concrete recommendations to each community, like which tree species could they plant and where, and what current activities are a risk to their water system. So, we planned to go visit the source of water for each community and to inspect the surrounding areas for risks.

It’s good to have friends that are experts in watersheds!

Just when I was heading to the office to do some planning for our first site visit, I saw two of my good friends, who work for the non-profit, taking a snack break. Since I have (finally) learned to slow down and take advantage of these breaks to converse with friends and co-workers, I followed them instead of diving right into my computer work. During the conversation, my friend pointed out that we should look at satellite images of the areas to help guide our inspection and give us an idea of what areas might have risks. What a brilliant idea, and I can’t believe I hadn’t talked to her sooner!

She helped me print out satellite images of each area, and showed me how to read them to have an idea of where land had been developed, where rivers might be, and how to show topography. It turned out to be a key tool in our analysis, in conjunction with using google maps on the phone to help track where we were during the inspections.

The next day, we headed out to climb to the water sources for three different water systems. Each time was a steep ascent through the high jungle hills, each taking between 30 minutes to an hour to reach the top. From there, we explored the surrounding areas, looking to identify the possible risks we saw from the satellite images, as well as any other risks we could identify on-the-ground.

The day started out with good luck as we saw two wild monkeys – tiny rabbit-sized animals with a long tail – playing in the trees. My first experience ever seeing wild monkeys!

I know you can’t see them, but I swear there are two small monkeys in the tree across the highway.

Later we passed a tree that produces a cotton-like substance – my first time seeing cotton fall from a tree. Finally, it was the first time that plants stung me through my pants – who knew that plants could sting, and even through cloth?! I thought that only happened in Australia.

You can imagine that I was pretty hungry by lunch time, so I blame the low blood sugar for my slip of the tongue when I asked if anyone was “dying from the man” instead of dying of hunger (“alguien esta muriendo de hombre?”)!

Actually, I could write a whole blog entry on all my slips of the tongue in castellano… and maybe one day I will. Stay tuned…

People Make the Difference

Now this is going to sound super ivory-tower, bureaucratic, but the thing I am have been most proud of after my first year in site, is that I helped form a working group. Not just any working group, but one that actually works – that meets and does stuff. I know this probably sounds pretty lame to some, but anyone working in government or trying to get different organizations to work together might be able to appreciate why I am so happy about this. And some of you will also appreciate that our group has an acronym: GTIFAS. (Say: heteefas because the G sounds like an H in Spanish.) (And in case you wanted to know, it stands for: Grupo Técnico Interés de Fortalecimiento en Agua y Saneamiento).

I know this doesn’t have the flair of “I built a water system that will bring water to 100 people”, but here’s the thing: The municipality has built many water systems to bring water to hundreds of people in rural communities here, but that water is not potable water, the majority of the systems are not maintained, and some of them not functioning properly. So, as I learned in my work with Engineers Without Borders, infrastructure is really only half (if even half) of development – it’s the social aspect – the people part – that is equally important, crucial for sustainability, and often overlooked. (1)

An unused reservoir due to various factors, including a poorly designed filter and poorly organized water committee.

So, when I arrived, what I found was a really great foundation for having clean water: Constructed water systems. Many different institutions whose purpose is to make sure people have potable water – specifically, the municipality and three different health institutions. Even an NGO that does similar work (watershed protection). And, smart, motivated people working in the institutions.

And all these people and organizations have all been working at this for a while – even decades for some, but usually working separately within their own institutional goals and bureaucratic reporting requirements (even though they all have a common goal of making sure people have clean water to drink (among many other goals that they manage)).

So… I formed a working group. With 7 different organizations, if you count Peace Corps (me). That is, 7 motivated, smart people.

And, while previously these organizations had rarely, if ever, met in the same room to talk about the problem of potable water, in this past year we have met at least every other month, and are giving monthly trainings in rural towns – which is something that has never before happened.

Interactive training in rural community. (The training was led by 4 different members of GTIFAS.)

We are now analyzing the results from the trainings last year to see if we are any closer to having functioning water committees and systems that provide potable water. And together we have dreamed up a plan for expanding our work for 2018, (hopefully with the help of a funding from outside sources), to have a greater presence and give better support in these rural communities, using (and trying out) the latest strategies in development related to health promoters and behavior change.

While I will give myself credit for helping make this group happen, I definitely do not take all the credit…the real credit goes to the individuals who come to those meetings and participate in the group – they are motivated, passionate, and don’t just work for the paycheck – they really do want to see these rural communities have access to potable drinking water. And they are taking a chance on this group – coming to meetings even though they are super busy and tired from a long week, putting in the extra effort, and hoping that our combined efforts will lead to a real change.

Right now we are just a working group that has given some good trainings, shared some good ideas, and applied for a grant for t2018. But still there is no potable water, so I’m not patting myself on the back saying the work here is done. But we are working on human issues that take time to change – behavior change, changing how people thing about water, and training people with low education levels on how to manage a water system in its technical and administrative aspects.

These things take time, perseverance, creativity, and constant effort. The ideas, collaboration, and energy that are coming out of the working group give me hope that this is an important first step towards real changes.

Now to the real work…to stay motivated and keep each other motivated in the long process ahead.

Three of the seven GTIFAS representatives at a training to prepare a grant proposal.

1. So, if you’re into footnotes and soap boxes, here’s one. While building something is really sexy and sounds awesome, the reality is that maintaining that something is where the real work and benefit lies…the long-term, arduous, un-sexy work that is super necessary and usually unappreciated and certainly underfunded. We often think infrastructure and technology are what make our lives better, but without people keeping those things working well, we would not have them. So thank you to all the people out there doing the best they can, working on maintaining the infrastructure and institutions humans have created throughout the centuries.

Hopeful About the Future

I wanted to follow up on my post about Vacaciones Útiles, or summer classes, because my first class was yesterday, and it really made my day! I walked into the class in the afternoon with a fuzzy brain because I’m fighting a cold, and I reminded myself to maintain my confidence, connect with the students, talk to them like adults…and to forget the drowsiness and insecurities that were trying to dominate. So, I started out by introducing myself, telling them a little about where I grew up, my work in the US and what I am doing here, and I asked them all to tell me a little about themselves – as a homework assignment…(Since there were 16 of them, and I only had 40 minutes, I didn’t have time to hear from everyone unfortunately).

Class

There were mostly girls – 11 girls and 6 boys, which was interesting, being that it was a class for video production and editing, and statistics say that there are fewer women in tech fields than men, so it was interesting to see solid interest by the girls!

I launched into our first lesson, which (as I’m sure you remember from the previous blog :)) was about values. (Again, I have to really give all the credit here to Peace Corps Peru, because I hardly had to do any preparation; PC Peru gave us great materials for these lessons!) We did a dinamica (interactive activity), in which I read a statement and the students decided if they agreed, disagreed, or were unsure. To indicate their stance on the issue, they walked to a corner of the room that represented their response – signs in each corner indicated that they agreed, disagreed, or were unsure. Once they had all chosen their stance (their corner), I asked one or two students from each stance to explain why they chose what they chose.

IMG_20170113_162140 These jovenes, (young adults) were great! They had really thoughtful answers and were very respectful, and they all participated! I want to share a few of the questions and their responses, because it shows that times are changing and the younger generations are learning about and thinking progressively about gender equality, health, the environment, and their communities.

A person can have a good job without finishing high school.

>> The majority disagreed saying that jobs usually asked for your credentials proving you had finished high school, but a few (most of the boys) took the position of being unsure, explaining their reasoning by recounting stories of people who had not finished school but had become very rich.

Women should sometimes pay the expenses for a date.

>>Unsurprisingly, all the boys agreed with this one! The majority agreed, but about 4-5 girls disagreed saying that men traditionally pay, and as that is the custom, they should always pay. A few were unsure saying it depended on the situation.

Throwing trash out the window of a car doesn’t really impact the environment.

>>Everyone disagreed, saying that trash needed to be thrown in the trash can.

Men can be good secretaries or nurses.

>>All the boys agreed with this one! And the majority of the class agreed with this, but about 5-6 girls were unsure and said that sometimes boys were less responsible or didn’t have sufficient education and so there might be cases were it wasn’t true.

If they decide to have kids, women should stay at home and raise the children.

>>No one agreed with this one; they said that women could have kids and do other things too.

One person is not responsible for the health of others.

>>All but one person disagreed with this, giving examples of how someone who doesn’t wash their hands can pass germs to others, affecting their health. Also, one of the girls pointed out that sometimes we have to care for our family members who are sick. One boy was unsure because he said if a person lives all alone on his farm and has no contact with others, he might not impact the health of others.

Men should know how to cook and wash clothes.

>>Everyone agreed with this!

A citizen can’t affect change in their community.

>>Everyone disagreed with this one, though there was a really great discussion about whether one person alone could affect change; they agreed that one person could start the change and encourage others, but more than one person is needed to create change.

In summary, the responses and the discussion by these bright 12-17-year-olds cleared my head and left me feeling inspired and hopeful about the future of Oxapampa, the future of Peru, and the future of the world!