After our week long trip in the community of Sanka, the team spent two days in Cuzco re-stocking food supplies, hiring a translator, meeting with local institutions including Ministry of Health (MINSA), and preparing for the work to be done in Araypallpa.
Last Friday we took off for Araypallpa and spent a week in the rural Andean village. Araypallpa gave the team a warm welcome and we were able to hit the ground running. We have been working with the community for 6 years now and there is a trust between the community and the EWB team. Mary Dinh, our project advisor, has been leading EWB-UCSB teams to Araypallpa since 2004 and the community welcomes her as their own. The young girls of the community presented us all with flowers when we arrived and we set up camp in their community center.
Immediately on Saturday morning we were able to meet with community leaders including the president, water committee leader, and outgoing local spokesman (Rolando Blanco) to get an update of the community´s latest news and progress. Araypallpa is the type of community that has the leadership and motivation to make things happen (like a new sewer system next year and toilets the year after that!) and this factor makes our work with Araypallpa very easy. They are passionate about improving their conditions and making their community the best that it can be. It seems that this is not always the case in the developing world where people have the tendancy to accept the way things are. During our time there, the Araypallpiños were more than willing to take time out of their busy harvest season schedules to collaborate with us on these various education, water, and electricity projects.
Throughout our prearation this year, the team had split up into sub-teams in order to maximize our potential impact during our trip to Araypallpa. As we all know, plans change and a lot of us ended up working on projects we were unprepared for! Kelli and Carolyn were in charge of the adult and childrens workshops (stay tuned for pictures of the kids brushing Brandon and Mike´s teeth during a demonstration!) and also helped put together a maintenance book for the chlorination system. Mike took on the solar panel maintenance (creatively cleaning the battery terminals with Coke when other resources were limited). Chris and Adam were in charge of the water quality testing throughout the community, finding a small amount of bacteria in the spring water, but zero contamination after the slow sand filters (installed from 2006-2008). They also worked with Danielle (president of water committee) to improve the functioning of the chlorination system. Mary had the most knowledge of the slow sand filters and pilot greywater system, so she took on the responsibility of following up on these two systems. Ruben´s translating skills were just too good for any of us to pass up, so he was dragged from meeting to workshop & to more meetings in order to provide smooth translation between the gringos and the locals. Brandon and Colleen saw the ´down and dirty´side of the life of a local Araypallpiño during their house visits to perform health assessment questionnaires. I hope they get a chance to add their hilarious stories of Chicha (local corn beer) and crazy 90 yr old ladies who only spoke Quechua.
As far as our budget goes, I have to thank all of our friends and family for your support this year. There are always umplanned expenses and your support has given us some breathing room. Our goal for this year was $16k and as of last week we have raised $15.7k. Also, big thanks to EWB-USA and Tetra Tech for the grant funding!
More updates and pictures to come!
Ciao,
Adam
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