Water Fights

April 26th, 2007 La Encantada, Peru

Chaos Brimming at the top of Empty Water Buckets

Here in this small community of approximately 3,500 we have water for 2 hours in the morning everyday except Sunday. Everyone attempts to fill as many trash can buckets of water as possible so they are able to wash clothes, cook, bathe and perform whatever other duties they may need to throughout the day. That is how it is supposed to work.

Except when the president of the water committee is a bit power hungry and also a bit mentally ill. Sometimes, we won´t have water for 3 days straight which makes the people irate. For the third week in a row this was the case and the rumor was the president would not be turning the water on until Monday. It was Wednesday.

You see, sometimes people don´t pay their water bills. The community doesn´t have the capacity to turn off the water by the individual house (like the electric company can) and thus everyone suffers because they turn it off for everyone. Now relatively, the water is cheap. Its only $1.33 per family per month. Even in a poor community like mine, that is affordable. That isn´t the problem.

So along with the town leader, we called a town meeting. Everyone decided to kick out the old water president and set-up a new committee. I will be working with the committee to develop new methods to enforce payment. I am excited to suggest one I learned in Honduras.

A team of three drummers shows up in front of your house at 5am and begins to beat bloody racket and until you pay. They then proceed to the next house. Not only do people want to shut you up, they are so embarrassed they tend to find the money real quick.

April 24th, 2007 La Encantada, Peru

Ducks and Gardens

The nine families who are raising gardens recently transplanted their tomatoes and cauliflower to the main garden. Other plants are starting to sprout up. We are gardening in some pretty unfavorable conditions, so we’ll see how much success we have.

It sounds like we are going to get approved for a micro credit loan for the duck raising project. Each family will then receive 4 females and a male and begin production. We hope to repay the loan within a year. I think we have found an institute to provide us technical assistance as well.