¡Puetare [Yanesha for “good morning”] from Churhurras!
After a quick, but large breakfast, we hopped in Camilo’s truck to face our busy day. Today was a community work day in San Francisco, the town on the north side of the Chuchurras River. When we arrived, volunteers had already begun working by preparing the trench for pipe and placing pipe where needed along the trench. About 60 members of the community - men, women, and children - were in attendance to contribute to the construction of the distribution system. Our team divided into two groups - one to work with the community to install pipe and one to work with the local electrician to upgrade the well pump controls and assemble the chlorination system.
Significant progress was made in pipe installation. Several more people were trained in on how to use the PVC primer and cement, thanks to the time spent working with Ricardo yesterday. Like yesterday, we continued to count together while the glue set. The rest of the community volunteers spent their time manually removing rocks from the trench, providing and installing sand for backfill to protect the pipes, and removing rocks from the native clay soil for additional pipe protection before mechanized backfill. Unfortunately, the backhoe was out of commission today, but folks were working hard to get it fixed and we are hoping it’ll be up and running again tomorrow!
In the well house, the team worked to prepare the electrical, controls, and piping for installation tomorrow - working with the electrician to discuss the optimal way to install things. The well house is always a treat and the team has found a wide variety of bugs, big and small (see photos).
The day ended with a community meeting to thank everyone for their hard work and discuss the plans for continuing tomorrow!
¡Ahuerren! [Yanesha for “see you later”]
Rena Weis
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