I would be remiss if I did not share a few photos of a couple of great people, Chitio and Olfania, who always make us feel at home while in eastern Guatemala. In fact, every time I have been in Jocotán they have generously insisted on hosting our group for dinner and drinks, no matter how large our group. Often, many times during the same visit.
It feels so much like home that our most recent visit to Chitio and Olfania’s even included a lesson in making tortillas! If you have never eaten fresh, hot, Guatemalan tortillas then I am afraid you are missing out. They are thicker than the corn tortillas we are accustomed to in the US, and are served at almost every meal. Although I would love to share the recipe, but like any cook worth her merit, Olfania just adds a little of this and a little of that. The basics: Add enough water to Maseca corn flour until you have an almost play-doh-like consistency. Then (and this is the secret – I hope Olfania doesn’t mind me sharing it), you let the dough sit overnight in the refrigerator. This requires a bit of pre-planning, but if you think ahead, you'll be rewarded with dough that's less sticky and easier to handle. This is important, as your next step is to shape them by hand into round, flat circles -- easier said than done. Mine ended up looking more like the Florida Peninsula. Today our research team visited Pinalito, a small community in Quezaltepeque (approximately 15 miles southwest of Jocotán, our home-base while in eastern Guatemala) to tour their water distribution system and to learn about the community’s success at self-governance and continued operation and maintenance of their water system. We brought with us a few members from Matazano, the community collaborating with the Sunflower State Professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA, in hopes that they would learn from Pinalito, and become inspired in their own efforts to organize. We arrived at the community a little later than expected, but there were a group of women waiting to meet us and to give us prepared presentations about their experiences. The women appeared a little nervous, but they were obviously very proud (and rightfully so!), of the work they had accomplished. Tired of walking over six miles (sometimes leaving as early as 2am) to collect enough water for drinking and daily household chores, the women self-organized in 2006 to bring clean water to their families (1). Two years later the women, in partnership with a local development organization, had planned and organized the construction of the community’s first water distribution system, which includes a yard-tap for each of the 28 households in Pinalito. According to the women, they have water service 24 hours a day, and each household pays five quetzales a month (less than one dollar), or sixty quetzales a year. Total cost of the system was 340,000 quetzales (approximately $43,500) (1). What is so impressive is how well organized the women are. They showed us record-keeping books for their monthly Water Committee meeting minutes, a receipt book for yearly household payments, sheets for recording the chlorine residual in the system, and water quality sampling results from the Ministry of Health certifying the water was safe for drinking. Although the Ministry of Health analyzes the samples, the women must collect the water from the system and deliver it to the local health center for analysis. In addition, the women are conducting almost-daily testing of the chlorine residual in their drinking water system. The fact that the women have 24-hour service is also impressive given that even those in Guatemala City do not receive this level of service. You can read more about the women's efforts in this article: (1). Osorio J. 2014. La sed de progreso motiva a mujeres. First thing on the agenda after we arrived in Jocotán was to meet with the local municipality to see if we could tour the water treatment and distribution facility, which is just a short hike west of the city. Jocotán is a relatively small city of approximately 6000-7000 people. It serves as the social and economic hub for the surrounding rural communities, and is also our home base while working in eastern Guatemala. The Jocotán water system consists of three tanks - two that are actively used and one on reserve for storage. Water enters the system at approximately 44 liters per second and comes from over 8 kilometers away. They used to have water 24 hours per day, but the technician explained that population increases and drying up of the water sources means they now have to ration the water, especially in the summer. During these periods residents of Jocotán receive water for only five hours per day (from 10am until 3pm), and use their own rooftop storage tanks to collect enough to use until the next day. Although they sometimes treat the system with chlorine, we were told this was not currently being done because during this time of year the water is more turbid and the chlorine was therefore not effective. By touring the treatment facilities in Guatemala City and Jocotán, we are hoping to get a more complete picture of water treatment in Guatemala, and to get a better sense of what is even possible as we collaborate with the local rural communities. If the more urban areas cannot provide continuous access to chlorinated water, is it appropriate to expect and design for this level of service in the nearby rural communities? We recently discovered this mural while walking in Antigua, Guatemala. The artist is unknown, however the text appears to be taken (at least in part) from a documentary about Maya worldview. Photo by Ben Rufenacht. "La Memoria del Agua" El agua es sagrada, es símbolo de pureza y vital para la existencia de vida mineral, vida animal, vida vegetal, humana y es parte del cosmos y sin embargo los ríos mueren de sed. "The Memory of Water" Water is sacred, it is a symbol of purity and is vital for the existence of mineral life, animal life, plant life, human [life] and is part of the cosmos and yet the rivers die of thirst. Two of the national agencies we met with while in Guatemala City are the Instituto de Fomento Municipal (INFOM) and the Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social (MSPAS), both of which play a role in the provision of water and sanitation services in rural communities.
INFOM is a socio-economic development agency created in 1957 to provide technical and financial assistance for basic civil works programs to the 338 municipalities in Guatemala. MSPAS is the national organization which oversees the planning, implementation, management, and evaluation of public health services in Guatemala. Before our recent visit, I had read that Guatemala was the only country in Central America which does not have a unifying national water law. Although there have been many attempts spanning several decades to pass such a law (including 21 drafts before Congress in early 2013), fears of privatization and the desire of large industrial-agricultural corporations to avoid restrictions on water use and environmental regulation have prevented their adoption. As spelled out in the 1985 Constitution, potable water in Guatemala is a public resource. Following the 1996 Peace Accords (which formally ended a decades long civil war) Guatemala passed legislation (Decreto 11-2002) to create a series of Development Councils which decentralized the management of public resources to ensure equitable distribution of public funds and to encourage greater participation of all populations (indigenous and non-indigenous) in the public administration process. Additional legislation (Código de Salud: Decreto 90-97, and Código Municipal: Decreto Ley 12-2002), explicitly tasks the municipalities (administratively similar to counties in the US) with the treatment of water for public consumption. Unfortunately, while this may sound good in theory, we have learned that in practice many municipalities just don’t have the resources (or any real power of enforcement) to ensure safe water supplies. In fact, according to a recent report, 2/3 of the more than 23,000 public water supply systems monitored in 2011 were contaminated with microbial pathogens and only 1/3 contained residual levels of chlorine sufficient to ensure a safe supply. The construction of the Acueducto de Pinula, one of the first works of hydraulic engineering in Guatemala City, began in 1776 after the move of the capital from Antigua following an earthquake in 1773. The aqueduct was designed by the architect José Bernardo Ramírez, who planned and designed much of Guatemala City.
The Acueducto de Pinula began in what is today El Cambray treatment plant. The arches of the aqueducts were constructed of bricks and cement, and water was distributed to the public through subterranean networks constructed of baked clay and bricks. The principal structure was approximately 30 meters wide by 15 meters tall and 5 kilometers in length, but the distribution network spanned over 20 kilometers. The total capacity of the system was approximately 2000 cubic meters. Construction of the aqueduct was completed in 1786. The Acueducto de Pinula was used to distribute water from the Rio Pinula for over 150 years until it was replaced with more modern systems in 1938. Although parts of the aqueduct have been destroyed (especially by earthquakes in 1917 and 1918), the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture passed regulation in 1986 to help preserve and protect the aqueducts. Sources: 1. Martínez G and T Cabrera. 1999. “El Montículo de la Culebra: Monumento fachada de la arqueología del valle de Guatemala.” In: XII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, edited by JP Laporte and HL Escobedo. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala. 2. Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Guatemala. 2014. Historia de la Empresa Municipal de Agua – EMPAGUA: El camino de agua no se detiene. 3. Urrutia C. 2011. "Acueducto de Pinula." Historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala. One of the goals of this visit to Guatemala (my 7th!) is to learn as much as we can about water treatment and distribution. We plan on visiting water treatment plants in Guatemala City, in a smaller urban area, and then in the rural communities. We hope this will provide us with insight and perspective as we work to bring clean water to the Ch’orti’ communities living in eastern Guatemala. Our first visit was with Empresa Municipal de Agua (EMPAGUA), which supplies more than 10 million cubic meters of water each month to approximately 85% of the 3 million people living in Guatemala City. We met with Hugo Vasquez and Eric Hernandez at El Cambray treatment plant, which was constructed in the 1960s and is the oldest water treatment plant in Guatemala City. Actually, the origins of this plant were constructed in colonial times as part of the aqueducts, the vestiges of which can still be seen at El Cambray. The water entering El Cambray comes from the Rio Pinula, approximately 5 kilometers from Guatemala City. They treat, on average, 80-90 liters of water per second, which serves close to 300,000 people living in Zones 10, 14, and 15. As water enters the plant it is mixed with aluminum sulfate and other coagulant aids to help removed the suspended solids from the river water. The water then goes through a series of settling basins before passing through sand and gravel filters. After filtration, the water is treated with chlorine gas to disinfect any remaining microbes before being sent through the distribution system and out into the city.
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AuthorI am an environmental engineer with over seven years of experience working on water and sanitation programs in developing communities through the non-profit organization Engineers Without Borders USA, and ten years of experience as an environmental engineer with the US Army Corps of Engineers. I post about WASH, global health, international development, social good, and women in science. ArchivesCategories
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